Yoo-hoo! It's me!
Last time we spoke, it was March and I was doing some cold-weather cooking. Now it's the end of June and too hot to cook, so I don't have a recipe for you today. Since then I was in the hospital for a long while with a very sick kid (who is much improved, thanks!), and I remain boundlessly grateful to live in Boston and to have good medical insurance.
In the meantime, I have developed adhesive capsulitis —aka "frozen shoulder"—in my left shoulder, and I can't even describe how painful this is. (Side note: If you have told me in the past that you had frozen shoulder, I can guarantee that I was not sufficiently sympathetic. I HAD NO IDEA.) I had my chiropractor work on it for many weeks, but he said it was finally time to see an orthopedist. The orthopedist said they used to do surgery and physical therapy for frozen shoulder but found that they really don't help, and all I can do is wait it out—for a year or two! He did say that some of his patients have had good results from acupuncture, so I had my third appointment today. I had acupuncture many years ago and it helped with other conditions, so I'm hopeful. (Right now I'm about to pass out from the strong menthol smell of the tape she put on my shoulder after sticking needles in me.) The orthopedist also suggested I try CBD oil (topical, not oral), so I ordered some. He had thought I'd be able to march into any Whole Foods or CVS to buy it, but it was not available anywhere I could find (at least not here in Massachusetts), so I went online. I'll let you know how it works.
What else ... at the end of March I also went to my beloved American Copy Editors Society annual meeting. This time it was practically in my backyard—Providence, Rhode Island—so while I didn't get to check off somewhere new and fun from my travel wish list, I did save a lot of time and money. And I got an almost unreasonable amount of pride out of showing off this very sweet little New England city to colleagues from all over the country—and even one from Australia! This year, instead of presenting a lecture-style session on cookbook editing, I ran a hands-on recipe editing workshop, which I think went over very well. (Pro tip: When in doubt, it never hurts to hand out chocolate!) Anyhow, it was a whirlwind 5 days of learning and networking and mostly having fun with my far-flung editorial colleagues and friends. Next year: Salt Lake City!
Speaking of cookbooks, here are just a handful that I edited since I last checked in:
Oh, and did I mention that Steph graduated cum laude from Boston University? She'll start her grad work in the fall, which includes student teaching first graders. She's spending this summer babysitting various families from last fall's student teaching gig in a kindergarten class.
A couple of weeks ago we had a fabulous celebration up in Ogunquit for the 90th birthdays this spring of Andy's father and Andy's aunt. Relatives came from all over the place and ate and drank and roasted/toasted the birthday boy and girl. Here's my gang:
And that's about all. Summer is usually a very busy time for book publishing folks, but I'm trying not to overschedule myself and to allow myself some time to just relax. As I've surely mentioned before, my preferred activity when I have down time is word games and puzzles. At any given time I am in the midst of dozens of games of Scrabble, Letterpress, Words With Friends, and Boggle. (I am this close to giving up on Words With Friends, though, because of all the annoying, disruptive, stupid little bells and whistles they added a few months ago that you can't seem to opt out of!) Challenge me to a game if you are so inclined! I also find these games to be a nice mini-break during the day when I reach a natural stopping point in work (e.g., the end of a chapter)—I'll take my turn in a few games and then head back to the comma mines. I also love crossword puzzles, acrostics, sudoku, kenken, you name it. My favorite way to spend an hour in the evening is to put on the Sox game, have Andy pour me a drink, and curl up with the day's NYT crossword on my iPad. I know lots of people who use the timer because they are trying to solve as fast as they can, but I am the opposite. I really enjoy the process of solving the puzzle and can't imagine wanting to rush through it. To me that would be like wolfing down a fine meal! I prefer to savor every bite. I also love "variety puzzles," such as the ones published in the WSJ every Saturday (I print it out). My favorite is the "Rose Garden," and I even have three different subscriptions to them: one from Joon Pahk at Outside the Box Puzzles, one from Andrew Ries at Aries Puzzles, and one from Michael Blake at Garden Party Crosswords. (Yes, I LOVE these puzzles!) Another puzzle source I recently discovered is the (free) Puzzle Page IOS app, which has loads of interesting puzzles of all kinds.
And that's about all for this update. If you would like to know more about my thrilling daily ins and outs, feel free to connect with me on Twitter, where I'm quite active. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram but post there only infrequently.