Life: It Goes On - September 14

Happy Sunday! Wow, how are we already half way through September?! Also, how did I not manage (again!) to get a single book review posted. I am happy to say that I've been reading, although I must say that most of what I've been reading would be now higher on a grading scare than a C. Still, that hasn't killed by desire to read and I've been taking advantage of some nights on my own to turn off the tv and just read.  

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished The Instrumentalist and started Gabrielle Stanley Blair's Ejaculate Responsibly and Javier Zamora's Solito which is the Omaha Reads selection for 2025 and my book club's selection for this month. 

Watched: Lots of sports and not much else. 

Read: I finished Ruth Ware's latest, The Woman In Suite 11 and started Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore. I continue to read Paul Harding's Enon when I'm not carrying a physical book with me. Lately, though, I find I'm more likely to prefer having a real book in my hands. 

Made: Enchiladas with a mole sauce, our usual Monday pasta with fresh tomato and basil, and a BLT salad. 

Enjoyed: Two things this week: 1) Mini-him and I went to see the movie version of Hamilton Wednesday. I am truly blessed to have children that have similar interests and enjoying doing things together. Last night, as part of Omaha Restaurant Week, we went with friends to Dolomiti for their special prix fixe dinner. Started rough, thanks to a very loud party table, but once they left, we enjoyed delicious food and excellent company. The owner even gave us starts of the sourdough they use to make their pizza crust! 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: A little getaway. 

Thinking About: The events of this past week and hoping that the initial reactions from it calm down before we can't come back from the aftermath. 

Feeling: I'm feeling a little burnt out from work lately. At some point in this calendar year, I'm supposed to be taking a full week off and I'm thinking I need to schedule that sooner, rather than later. 

Looking forward to: Book club on Tuesday and meeting my great-niece for the first time this coming weekend (and seeing her brother, parents and grandparents, too!). 

Question of the week: Do you like to try new things at restaurants or do you prefer to stick with the tried and true, knowing you'll enjoy what you get?

Life: It Goes On - April 27

Happy Sunday! It's been quite a dreary weekend here and it's resulted in my battling a headache off and on for a few days (which is always a frustrating way to spend time away from work). I did manage to power through and get quite a bit done and to head off Friday to enjoy one of Omaha's fun things - Junkstock. Found so many things there that I really wanted but talked myself out of, thanks to all of the work I've done to pare down the amount of stuff we  own. There was a part of me that was grateful to my brain being rewired to reject bringing too much home and another part of me that was annoyed that my rewired brain made me leave behind some really cool things. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished The Hitchcock Hotel and started Samantha Irby's We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, which I will finish in the next couple of days. Then it's on to Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl. 

Watched: Monday evening I had the t.v. to myself and watched The Life List, which I enjoyed - predictable but also sweet and funny and touching. Last night the Big Guy and I finally watched Glenn Powell in The Hitman. 

Read: I'm jumping back and forth between The Fairbanks Four and Peter Graham's Anne Perry And The Murder Of The Century. It's not often that I find myself reading two nonfiction books at the same time (plus listening to a nonfiction) and I'm not sure it's my best idea. May have to set one aside and read something light and fluffy to offset the heavier topics. 

Made: An adaptation of Ree Drummond's Chocolate Cereal Treats (she uses three kinds of cereal but we were never going to finish the three boxes of unfinished chocolate cereals so I only used one and I didn't include extra marshmallows). They're very tasty but I also got the ingredients to make traditional Rice Krispie treats, which I think I may actually like better. 

Enjoyed: Book club on Tuesday. Seeing some of "kids" at Junkstock, one of whom is the creator of the jewelry I'm addicted to (I may have splurged on another pair of earrings while I was there!) on Friday. Dinner out with friends on Saturday night. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On getting to the greenhouse(s) this week so I can start getting my hands in the dirt!

Thinking About: Monday evening a 16yo died at the entrance to our neighborhood when a man ran a redlight. I heard the sirens that night and it reminded me of all of those years when I'd hear sirens and run a mental checklist of where all of my people were, trying to make sure that siren didn't involve any of them. I can't help but wonder if that girl's mother heard those sirens and did the same thing. My heart just breaks for her family. 

Feeling: Tired of grey days and cool temperatures. 

Looking forward to: Higher temps this week and time to starting bringing our outdoors back to life. 

Question of the week: I'm seeing a lot of people starting to bemoan the spring and the pollen and the approaching of summer. Whereas, I, of course, cannot wait for these seasons. How about you? Are you more of a cool weather or warm weather person? 

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

400 pages

Published July 2024 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.

My Thoughts: 

This week I'll be reviewing this book by Omaha author Rainbow Rowell and Omaha author Timothy Schaffert. As I looked back to see which was the first Rowell book that I'd read, I found that in April 2011, I also reviewed books by these same authors. That Rowell book was my first book by her, 2011's Attachments. In that book I found that her writing light and humorous, but also heartwarming and heartbreaking. I was so excited that she agreed to write a guest post for my then two-year-old blog. 

Since then I've read 2014's Landline, 2013's Fangirl and, one of my all-time favorite books, 2012's Eleanor and Park. Since then, though, Rowell has written three books that were a spinoff of Fangirl that were not something that interested me and some manga, also outside of my reading comfort zone. I've missed her. I can't tell you how excited I was to find that she'd finally written something that harkened back to those books I so enjoyed a decade ago. And then worried that Rowell's style might have changed over the years, that this book couldn't live up to my memories of the other books. 

What did I expect from this book (which, of course, I knew nothing about going in because I didn't look, I just automatically knew I'd want to read it)? Humor. A relationship between two characters who keep putting roadblocks into their paths to happiness. Complicated family relationships. At least one quirky character, most likely one that makes me think that they are modeled in no small part on Rowell herself. Great dialogue. Omaha. And I got all of that, every bit of it. 

This is what Kirkus Reviews had to say about this book: "Both of them are smart, clever, misanthropic, and stubborn. They are also, along with the omniscient narrative voice and tertiary characters, very funny. Rowell does longing like nobody’s business. She pits epic love against relatable, painful foibles. Cary and Shiloh want each other palpably, but they get hung up on little details, feel shame, project, overthink. They struggle mightily to believe they’re lovable."

In this book, Rowell blends her understanding of adult life and relationships (as she did so well in Landline) with her astonishing ability to recall the angst and pain and struggles of young people. In this book, readers are treated to both the current storyline of Shiloh and Cary as they try to reconnect and pick up where they left off and to glimpses into their pasts, into their friendship that would long ago have become something more than that had they had the ability and courage to express what they truly felt. In the end, it's probably just as well that they didn't. It wouldn't have lasted. They had to work their way to each other as adults. I'd worry that I've given away something here; but you know this book for what it is, a romance where you'll get the ending you're hoping for. Even if you can't imagine, for a goodly part of the book, how these two will ever be truly honest with each other, get over their fears, and find a way to make things work out, no matter how many obstacles are in their path. 

Welcome back to adult fiction, Rainbow Rowell! I've missed you! 

Life: It Goes On - August 5

Happy Monday! How are we already almost through the first week of August?! Schools here start in a couple of days (not looking forward to that change in morning traffic) which just seems crazy. 

We've had quite a week here. Huge storm blew through Wednesday evening with sustained wind gusts of 80-100 mph. There is damage all across the Omaha metro area. Many are still without power and it will be weeks before all of the tree damage is handled. Spent Thursday and Friday evenings and The Big Guy spent a good part of Saturday cutting things up and hauling them away. What mess and we were exhausted, but we have it so much better than so many.

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished The Paris Architect and I'm about 2/3 of the way through Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died. 

Watched: Oh, you know, about 100 hours of the Olympics! 

Read: I'll almost finished with Liane Moriarty's Here One Moment.

Made: BLT sandwiches using the grill when we were without power on Wednesday evening - haven't toasted bread on the grill since my family used to go camping. Also made my first caprese salad of the summer. Harvested a load of tomatoes the past couple of days so there will be more of that coming - I'll happily eat it every day. 

Enjoyed: My brother, sister-in-law, their daughter, son-in-law and grandsons were headed north to the county fair where my SIL grew up and they all stopped and spent the about 24 hours in Omaha. It was nice to have the adults here; but let's be honest - it was all about those little boys! Took them to a cool new park, a place where they could play in the water, and the giant slides in the mall area in downtown Omaha then finished off with great ice cream and pizza. These two had so much fun playing with toys my boys played with when they were about the same ages! 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: It's going to be another busy week. We'll have my brother and sister-in-law again Wednesday night on their way home, one evening we'll be taking more furniture to Mini-him and Miss C for their new place, one evening I get my hair down and this weekend BG gets to play with his old band. Needless to say, it will be hard to get much else done most nights but I am hoping to finish up Mini-him's dresser this weekend. 

Thinking About: Getting out of town. Somehow the summer has gotten away from us without us getting out of town at all. We're definitely due for a trip to see Miss C, would like to get north to my sister's, and are hoping to get south to my brother's. But I'd also like to find time for at least a long weekend getaway. 

Feeling: Proud of myself - got a nice promotion last week which will probably convince me to work at least a couple more years. 

Looking forward to: Getting my hair down - I love that couple of hours with no responsibility, getting pampered. 

Question of the week: What's one thing you do for self-care? 

Life: It Goes On - June 9

Happy Sunday! As I type, I'm watching out the window for a truck to arrive with my new washing machine. Mine decided it would tumble long enough to fill with water and it was fine with draining and spinning. It was just all of that stuff in the middle that it didn't want to do any more...like actually wash the clothes. I'd much rather be spending this money on a vacation! 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Lynn Painter's The Love Wager and started Madeline Martin's The Keeper of Hidden Books. Quite the change in mood from one to the other!

Watched: Lots of college baseball (again), game one of the NBA finals, and Jerry Seinfeld's latest movie, Unfrosted (a little stupid, but also fun with a lot of sly things thrown in and Hugh Grant was hilarious). 

Read: I finished Julia Alvarez's latest, The Cemetery of Untold Stories and started Kris Carr's I'm Not A Mourning Person: Braving Loss, Grief, and the Big Messy Emotions That Happen When Life Falls Apart. 

Made: Ravioli - both a spinach/ricotta and a sweet corn/spinach/ricotta type, chicken nugget salads, and a chicken pasta dish. 

The way you dress for a matinee
when you're following it up with
a trip to an arts festival. 

Enjoyed: Yesterday BG, Mini-him, Miss C and I went to a matinee performance (matinee because I was more concerned about getting seats where I wanted them than to pay attention to the fact that it wasn't an evening performance!) of Moulin Rouge, which we all thought was excellent. We followed that up with a trip to the Omaha Summer Arts Festival where we ate African, Mexican, Southern, and Indian food and came home with some art purchases. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: This week should be quieter so I'm hoping to get caught up on paperwork, do some work in the basement, and get some extra reading time in because I have so many books I need to get read. 

Thinking About: Father's Day and what to get for my dad and my hubby. 

Feeling: Like a different woman. Got my hair done on Thursday and we went lighter than I have been in years (gotta move that way to make the grays not so obvious quite so soon!). 

Looking forward to: Evenings on the patio since we'll finally have evenings that are free this week when it's not raining. 

Question of the week: Have you seen the theatrical production of Moulin Rouge? 

Life: It Goes On - April 28

Happy Sunday! I can, very fortunately, wish you a happy Sunday today because our home was spared from the devastating tornadoes that tore through Nebraska and Iowa on Friday afternoon/evening, one of which caused catastrophic damage in a part of town just north and west of us (in fact, in the neighborhood that Miss H used to live in). In the immediate aftermath of this kind of thing, everyone always says "we're just happy to be alive." Miraculously, everyone is. But in the days that follow, as reality really sinks in, I can't imagine the grief those who have lost everything are feeling. 

People often ask (as I do myself during the depths of winter) why people continue to live in a place where this kind of damage can happen. Here is why: when Mini-him and Miss C reported to the place they were to meet, there were 3,000 people at that location alone. Food trucks are providing free meals to the families affected and to the volunteers, vehicles are lined up along the roads nearby of people waiting to drop off donations. Most tell of all, the emergency shelter has had no one spend the night there because family, friends, and even strangers have stepped up to offer refuge for those impacted. This is how the Midwest responds. Life truly does go on. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Zadie Smith's latest, The Fraud. 

Watched: We spent a good deal of Friday watching the local weather people as the storms moved in. The meteorologists all said they'd seen nothing like it and were too busy reporting on the movements of the tornadic cells to even show footage until much later. Since then, we've seen so much unbelievable footage of the aftermath. 

Read: I finished Percival Everett's James. Highly recommend it. 

Made: Fried potato casserole, homemade macaroni and cheese, taco salad. All while trying to watch our calories. I will happily skimp on calories early in the day for a dinner of homemade mac and cheese!

Enjoyed: Turning in the keys to the apartment my dad lived in for 32 hours and putting an end to a chapter that has been nothing but work. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: We'll head out shortly to take another load to my dad's new place and will spend the next couple of days getting him, finally, settled into the new place. Things will go on the walls, the desk and his computer will get set up, his clothes will get moved into his own dresser and the ugly stuff they provide will move out. It won't be his dream place but it will be homey. 

Thinking About: Everything that needs to be done in my house. And the five-day weekend I have scheduled at the end of May with nothing on the calendar...yet.

Feeling: Happy that Miss H's wisdom teeth removal went off without a hitch and that she's had very little pain. A mama never stops worrying, especially when she can't be right there to help. 

Looking forward to: A couple of quick trips to KC soon. 

Question of the week: How is your weekend going? Are you getting things planted yet, making your gardens and yards look beautiful?

Happy Sunday! I hope it's as sunny there as it is here this morning - my day is always better when I can see the sun. I've had a very productive weekend; I took the day off Friday and have powered through getting a lot of decluttering done, laundry washed, and cleaning done. I'm feeling much lighter as I get rid of more and more things that don't need to live in my house any more, even if not all of it will show to the outside world. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Shauna Niequist's Present Over Perfect and started Jenny Odell's Saving Time. I seem to be on a real nonfiction bend of late. 

Watched: We finished Daisy Jones and The Six and both agreed we might have liked it better if we hadn't read the book first or if they had stuck more closely to it. I've also watched some more of The Crown and last night we watched Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Maestro. I can see why they were both nominated for Academy Awards but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting in a movie about Leonard Bernstein. 

Read: I'm reading Mansfield Park for book club and Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars. I keep feeling like I'm still not reading as much as I once did, but when I logged in everything I'd read or listened to so far this year, I find that I've already finished twelve books. I'm just listening more than I'm sitting down with a book. 

Made: Homemade mac and cheese and chicken noodle soup. BG was out of town for a couple of nights and we've eaten out a couple of nights so not much cooking was going on here. 

Enjoyed: A visit from my uncle and BG and I went for a belated Valentine's Day dinner last night. We went to a place, Trini's, we've never been to before but that's been a staple in Omaha for more than forty years. It was so good - I'm really beating myself up that I've been missing it all of these years! 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: The decluttering will continue. I'll finish what Go Simplified calls the entertaining areas. In her world, all of your entertaining things are in a couple of rooms, whereas my tablecloth collection is hanging in a guest room closet so, of course, while I was in that closet, I started going through everything in it. Need to finish that part of the project today so I don't have too many things started at once. 

Thinking About: My dad. He's not progressing as well as we had hoped and we may need to make some difficult decisions in the coming weeks. At the very least, I need to get some things in place sooner than I had planned. 

Feeling: More rested, thanks to that spur-of-the-moment decision to take Friday off. 

Looking forward to: Book club this week. 

Question of the week: I am so looking forward to my leftovers from last night's dinner, but I know a lot of people don't take home the food they don't finish. What about you - do you enjoy leftovers from dinners out? 

Life: It Goes On - April 30

Happy Sunday! It's sunny here but windy and not all that warm; not nearly as nice as it was yesterday. The flowering plants are largely all flowering here and it's beautiful to drive down the streets and see all of the color. I'm planning to go plant shopping in a bit but I'm certainly not going to be planting them today. On the plus side, it's not snowing here, as it is at my sister's house!

Last Week I: 

Listened To: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Next up is Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt, which is my book club's May selection. 

Watched: More Ted Lasso, more Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and some NFL draft. 

Read: Now Is Not The Time To Panic by Kevin Wilson. I really enjoyed his previous novel, Nothing To See Here. 

Made: Cinnamon rolls this morning and a quick bolognese, inspired by the delicious bolognese sauce my friend made last weekend. My quicky version certainly didn't live up to her all-day version but it wasn't bad for something that could be made in a half hour. 

The Boiler Room - Omaha

Enjoyed: My dad insisted on treating The Big Guy and me to a really nice dinner as a thank you. BG and I enjoyed a charcuterie board that had some really unique meats on it, including a pork and parsley terrine that I might not have been brave enough to try if the server had explained it to us (because we are definitely not that fancy as a general rule!). Everything was delicious, the atmosphere of the place is so cool, and our service was amazing. And now I owe a huge thank you to my daddy!

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I ended up spending quite a bit of time reorganizing (and decluttering) my office this week and I think I'll continue with that this week. I'm really feeling the need to shed "stuff" right now so I've been pretty ruthless and it feels so good!

Thinking About: What still needs to be done before we head to Alaska - what needs to be purchased, what I'm going to take, what needs to get done at work before I'm gone for six days. That last piece might be the piece that's giving me the most stress! 

Feeling: Relaxed (well, as relaxed as I ever get when I'm at home and thinking of all of the things that need to be done). A week with nothing on the calendar was just what I needed and I'm looking forward to another week just like that. 

Looking forward to: Think I just answered that. 

Question of the week: When you go out to eat, are you more likely to order something you're familiar with or do you take chances? 

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

You'll Never Believe What Happened To Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

Read by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

Published January 2021 by Grand Central Publishing

Publisher's Summary:

From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.

My Thoughts:

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey is this year's Omaha Reads selection. Why you ask? (I know you didn't really ask, but let's just pretend.) Because Ruffin and Lamar are from Omaha (Lacey still lives here) and because, clearly, Omahans need to wake the heck (if you know me in person, you know that's not the word I was going to use but I'm still trying to keep it clean because my mom wouldn't have liked the word I wanted to use) up. 

When asked who she wanted to have read this book, Lamar said: 

"I would love every single white person that I’ve ever worked with to read this book—and just white people in general. And white people who maybe think, “Well, is it really that bad? Is racism really that bad?”And supervisors, people who are in charge of people. I want them to read this book and be like, “I am never doing that again. I am now going to go to work and call Linda “Linda” and not “Black Linda.”"

If you've been reading this blog for the last couple of years, you'll know that I've been working very hard to educate myself about racism and been awakened to my own racism. I'm under no illusions that Nebraska is little better than the South, too, when it comes to racism. But people, I live in a city. Of course I know that racists live in cities, too; but I thought that at least there was less overt racism here. Wrong. 

I checked out the audiobook version of this book but I also won a copy of it from the library. If you're from Omaha and want to read this book, I recommend the audiobook. It's marginally less painful because Ruffin and Lamar are funny ladies and the impression is that, while they find these examples of racism horrible, they are also able to find the humor in them. That's less the case in the print version, although you do get to see a lot of illustrations and photos. Either way, this one's an eyeopener for those of us who live in Omaha (as it should be for people who live anywhere) and it's tough to realize that we live with people who would do the kinds of things that have been done to Lamar. Including ourselves. 

About 30 years ago, my husband and I liked to watch Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam on HBO. We laughed at lot while we watched it but we didn't always get the humor. Because we were white people who lived in a suburb in the Midwest!! It wasn't meant for us but, even then, I wanted to understand more. So I turned to the only person I knew who I could ask - the only black friend I had. She was patient (I didn't realize then just how patient) but often said "you wouldn't understand." I never stuck my whole hand in her afro, I never called her "Black Linda." I thought I treated her like every other friend I had. This book reminds me that, in asking her to explain humor I didn't get or asking her why she and her mom didn't move to a "safer" neighborhood, I didn't. 

I don't think Ruffin's and Lamar's point in writing this book is to make people feel awash with guilt over the past but I do think they do want us to look at things we've done and realize the ways that might have been racist. Recognizing those things is the only way to be better. As Maya Angelou said, "when you know better, do better." 

Another of my takeaways from this book is that silence is complicity. When Lamar sat in meetings where racist things were being said, when she was in shops where racist things were being done, when she was in school and hearing racist things, there were people who could have spoken out. No one did. I imagine that leaves persons of color to wonder if everyone agrees with the act or if they are just too complacent to say anything. I'm guilty of not speaking up; I'm a person who hates conflict so it's tough for me to speak up when I know it might cause problems. Once again, Ruffin and Lamar remind white people that our discomfort is nothing compared to what persons of color go through on a daily basis and a fear of conflict is a poor excuse. Lamar has lost a lot of jobs because she spoke up. The least I can do is back her up.

Life: It Goes On - August 8

Happy Sunday from sodden Omaha! We had very, very heavy rain last night and parts of Omaha flooded that I have never seen flood in the almost 36 years we've lived here. Water was rushing downhill so fast that it was pushing parked cars up against each other. Can't imagine coming out from a dinner out only to find that you couldn't get into your car because it was pressed up against another car! Glad that we did our carryout/picnic dinner earlier and that we had kept an eye on the forecast and not decided to spend the evening in downtown Omaha...or run to the grocery store about a mile from us! Definitely not our usual very dry August. 

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: The Maidens, by Alex Michaelides, after I finished J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. I'm really enjoying the readers of The Maidens. 

Watched: Pretty much only the Olympics. I stayed up until after 1 a.m. last night to watch the women's volleyball gold medal match. Three former Huskers play on the team, including Jordan Larson (who is from a small town in Nebraska), who was named MVP, and Justine Wong-Orantes, who was named best libero of the tournament. 

Read: Timothy Schaffert's latest, The Perfume Thief, which is now my favorite of his books. Or maybe tied for favorite because I still think about Coffins of Little Hope (it's one of the books that lives on my might-read-it-again-someday bookshelf - which holds very few books). 

Made: Pretty much everything we ate last week had tomatoes in it - it's that time of year! BLT salad, tomato and basil pasta, BLTs. If we couldn't work the tomatoes into the main course, I sliced them and ate them with a little salt. 

Enjoyed: Dinner with two of The Big Guy's siblings and their spouses Friday evening. It's the first time the six of us have been able to be together since before CoVid and it was so nice!

The Old Market district in 
downtown Omaha Saturday night

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Last week I started working on my office "inch by inch." Turns out that project is going to take a whole lot of smaller projects. I spent the better part of the week working with the proofs from our wedding photographer; for 38 years I haven't been sure what to do with them. Suddenly this week I figured it out. But, as with all of the projects I start, it took more work than I expected. I finally finished it this morning. The proofs included pics of almost everyone who came to the wedding going through the receiving line so it was fun to remember all of those people. This week I'm planning on a new inch-by-inch project in the office - it will also have to do with organizing pictures. 

Thinking About: A nap. I've been battling headaches all week and they are exhausting me. I need those hot, dry August days we usually have!

Feeling: Unproductive (see above), which is frustrating when there are so many things I'd like to be doing. 

Looking forward to: A quieter work week. My boss is on vacation this week so no visits to my desk with questions or "deliverables" she needs from me. Love my job and really like my boss but it's been crazy and I'm hoping this week is quieter. 

Question of the week: I'm told viewership for the Olympics is way down because young people don't have cable tv. Have you been watching? If so, what's been your favorite moment?

Three Bodies Burning by Brian Bogdanoff

Three Bodies Burning: The Anatomy of an Investigation into Murder, Money, and Mexican Marijuana by Brian Bogdanoff

Published 2011 by Press, LLC at Smashwords

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

A haunting triple murder... the inside story of the investigation.When two worlds collide-the illegal transportation of tons of Mexican cartel marijuana to inner city gang members in a Midwestern city's "hood"-three bodies end up burning, caught in a web of greed as a major international drug deal goes very bad.The chilling trail of evidence from a remote wooded area where three bodies are set on fire leads homicide detectives across the country chasing down witnesses and conspirators in a two-year search for cold-blooded killers. This case has it all: murder, piles of cash stashed in the most unlikely of places, a blood-soaked crime scene, the remote dump site for bodies, luxury cars, flashy jewelry, and hundreds of pounds of illegal dope.An unbelievable break takes detectives down the rabbit hole where CSI meets Law & Order and where good old gumshoeing and meticulous forensic procedures bring down a mega-million-dollar drug conspiracy and lock up the bad guys for life.Follow the case through the eyes of the gritty homicide/narcotics detective. A handbook for the amateur criminologist, this book is for true crime fans, prosecutors and defense attorneys, and cops and robbers.Warning: This book contains graphic crime scene photos and adult language.

My Thoughts: 

In my previous job, we were required to have a certain number of hours of fraud training annually. To that end, we attending several lunches hosted by a fraud group every couple of months. Finding people who wanted to speak became difficult and the tie to fraud was often tenuous. For example, the lunch where the county attorney spoke, along with former police officer, who were, to the best of my recollection, talking to us about fraud caused by drug dealing. Completely irrelevant to my line of work but one of the most interesting lunches we ever attended as the former officer was Brian Bogdanoff who spoke about his work in the narcotics division and in solving the crime to which the book title refers. I had every intention of picking up a copy of the book shortly there after and thought of it again when my daughter began studying criminal justice. Eight years later I finally got around to reading it. My thoughts about this book would certainly have been different had I read it years ago. 

I can remember watching the morning news fifteen years ago and learning that three bodies had been found burning just on the edge of Omaha. It's frightening to think that you live in a city where that kind of thing happens. And then, as happens when something ceases to be a news story, I forgot about it. A year later, I recall the trial, in no small part because of the fact that my husband was serving jury duty at that time and, fortunately, was excused from this case. Five years after that, I had forgotten about it again until Bogdanoff talked about it at our lunch and I was fascinated about how the police managed to identify three bodies without identification on them and then track down their murderers. 

I'm still fascinated by that and by the amount of luck, tedious work, and detail it takes to solve crimes like this one. And how much the police rely on the criminals to screw up. Two pieces of paper were left in the pockets of the three men who were killed; had those not been overlooked when the killers emptied the victims' pockets, this case might never have been solved. Finding out who the victims were was key to solving the case - that led officers to their families who confirmed that the men were in Omaha on drug business and gave them the street names of the men the victims had been working with. Still, those were not names the police were familiar with and it would be some months before their identities were discovered. The amount of paperwork and the number of people involved in solving this case are staggering. The detail involved in putting together a case that won't be able to be overturned later due to some technicality is unbelievable. I 100% believe that the men who committed these crimes were terrible people who deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison and I'm glad that Bogdanoff and the people he worked with were able to find them and get them off the streets of Omaha. 

That being said, in light of things I've learned in the past few years and of my new way of thinking about the way police departments work, I did have some problems with the book. For example, in the first chapter, Bogdanoff says, "...very few times do the good guys, the cops, catch a break or get lucky." It wasn't the only time he referred to the police as "the good guys," setting up "us versus them" mentality that I'm growing to believe is one of the problems with how our criminal justice system works. 

That's reinforced when he defends a practice the policy use known as a "bar check" which caused some problems for him once. He, of course, says he and the other officers involved did nothing wrong and that the leaders of the African-American community who "claimed they were threatened, harassed, and intimidated by officers coming into a celebration they were having" might have been doing so as a media ploy. I can't say for certain, but knowing what I know now, I'm guessing that these "bar checks" were more often done in neighborhoods were persons of color live. Bogdanoff says that they went into that particular bar because there was a "large volume of foot and vehicle traffic in the parking lot of a bar that was directly next to one of the housing projects." It clearly never occurred to him then, or in retrospect, that it might have been anything other than suspicious. Bogdanoff grew up in this town, he'd worked extensively in that neighbor, and I can't help but think that he surely must have recognized some of the people going into that bar. But he says "I...learned that I would face people...who have certain agendas, and to support those agendas, they will manipulate situations and facts." I'm sure he's not wrong, that he did encounter people who did that. Again, though, it doesn't seem to occur to him that he may have done the same thing. 

I wish Bogdanoff had had a better editor - I didn't need to know that the prosecutor from the county attorney's office looked like Diane Lane or that once he could "literally hear [another office] crap his pants." And perhaps a little less of the braggadocio. It's a book that could have been tightened up and more focused. Because there is a hell of a story here and an impressive job of bringing two murders to justice.