I’ll get back to books at some point soon, I promise. But for now I’ll tell you about my weekend and then give the answers to my quiz in my last post.
In most respects, it was an excellent weekend. It started with a noir picnic. Not sure what that is? Neither am I, really, but it’s fun. It consisted of getting together with my mystery book group, eating lots of good food, and sitting out in the sun on a beautiful day discussing Ross MacDonald’s novel The Underground Man. Perhaps a noir picnic should involve dark clouds, gloomy music, suspicious looks, and threats of violence, but we made do with what we had. We did take a walk in a woods that could possibly be called gloomy, although no one was kidnapped or harmed in any way.
Then on Sunday there was a bike race in my town. You’ll be happy to know that Hobgoblin recovered well enough from his concussion to get 6th place in his race. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that he got stung by something — we don’t know what — at the end of that race, and by the time we got home, he had broken out in hives. He took some Benadryl and seemed okay, so we proceeded to have a fabulous time hanging out with cycling friends and forcing them to walk (we make everyone who visits us walk) a mile into town to get some ice cream. The afternoon with friends was great, but when this morning got here and Hobgoblin wasn’t significantly better, we took him off to the doctor, where he was taken care of, and is now doing just fine. At this point, I think it’s only fair if Hobgoblin gets a chance to go through life without any accidents or incidents for a good long while.
My own race was pretty uneventful. There were only 11 women racing. It was an odd race because nobody wanted to ride out front into the wind, and so we all went pretty slowly through much of it, until we got to the bottom of the hill, at which point everyone started riding fast. I spent the race falling just a bit behind on the hill and then catching up during the rest of the lap. I got 7th, which was about right given my strength compared to everyone else’s.
But now on to the quiz. I think I might have made it a little difficult, but it’s hard to judge what my readers remember of the things I’ve said about myself. At any rate, here are the answers:
- C. I have six siblings. I think I tricked some of you with this one, because you might remember me mentioning the number “seven” in this context, but does that mean seven children total or seven siblings? It means seven children total. I’m the oldest.
- C. I’ve been teaching 11 years. I wasn’t teaching full-time all those years, and that number includes all the teaching I did as a grad student, but since teaching a class is teaching a class no matter whether I’m a graduate assistant or an assistant professor, I count them all. I taught at least one course a semester in all those years.
- B. I grew up in western New York state, the Rochester area to be specific. My parents are still there, so I return usually a couple times a year. It’s especially fun in winter time, when Hobgoblin and I almost always run into a blizzard.
- B. I specialized in eighteenth-century literature in grad school. I write about that enough that all of you got it right.
- D. I’m afraid of being upside down. I’m sure I wrote about that at least once on this blog, but I don’t blame anybody for not remembering it. I don’t know where the fear came from, but somersaults terrify me. Let’s not even talk about cartwheels or flips or anything like that.
- A. I hate potatoes. I’ve always hated them. There are lots of foods I hated as a child and learned to like as an adult, but potatoes aren’t on the list and never will be.
- C. I’m not a fan of D.H. Lawrence. All of you got that correct. That was an easy one.
- A. I’m particularly obsessed with essays. I’ve never read any true crime that I can remember, and while I like historical fiction and biographies, I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with them. But I’m always reading essays, most often the personal or familiar sort.
- B. I’m usually bored by action movies. All that violence and special effects — who cares? Give me some interesting emotional drama and I’m happy.
- A. I don’t like shopping for clothes at all, although I suppose I do do it on the weekend now and then. But I’m much more likely to be found riding, hiking, or, alas, grading papers.
That was fun — feel free to write your own quiz if you want to!
Of Books and Bicycles 
Okay, I did better by the end. Trust me to be unable to discount you as one of your siblings – duh! And very sorry to hear about the Hobgoblin. He must be getting his year’s quota of accidents over in one go….
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Though I didn’t post answers, I think I did pretty well on your quiz. I did not answer the fear or the hated food questions correctly.
So glad Hobgoblin is feeling better. He has had more than his share of mishaps lately, and I hope now he’ll be incident free for the rest of the year!
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I didn’t do too badly on the quiz. I do think question 8 was too tricky since you like to read books about the creation of biography so much and have been reading a number of bios lately and talking about them too. If you had left biographies off the list I am certain I would have gotten it right! 🙂
Glad Hobgoblin is recovering ok. He needs a personal force field or something or perhaps a bubble-wrap suit.
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Oh, I did better than I thought – although I would never have guessed potatoes!
The noir picnic sounds like a lot of fun, glad you had a nice weekend.
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Never would have picked out potatoes or the being upside down thing! 🙂
Anyway sending Hobgoblin some good vibes so there are no more mishaps. And, I love the idea of a noir picnic. I think I need to suggest that to my mystery reading group.
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Oooo! I want to go on a noir picnic. And was your Ross MacDonald one of the great new cover designs? That would only make the whole picture better in my mind. MacDonald’s books always remind me of my mother on the beach in the summer, tanning to a shade of leather and, deep in her book, blissfully ignoring our antics.
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I did quite well, and now I will try to remember there are 7 of you total in your family and not to invite you to go on any upside-down roller coasters.
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Litlove — well, I really don’t expect anybody to keep my siblings straight! And I sure do hope Hobgoblin has reached his quota of accidents.
Debby — good job on the quiz! And yes, I think Hobgoblin deserves a long, long period without any accidents or mishaps. I hope he gets it! Tonight’s race was safe and uneventful.
Stefanie — you’re right about biography, absolutely. Good thing I don’t write multiple choice tests for my classes, or my students might hate me because they are too tricky! 🙂 A personal force field for Hobgoblin would be lovely.
Verbivore — yes, the potatoes thing is kind of odd! But … what can I do? Unfortunately Hobgoblin loves potatoes but doesn’t get to eat them all that often.
Iliana — it would be great if your group took the idea of a noir picnic and used it! Thanks for the good vibes!
Frances — my MacDonald edition was an old one, unfortunately; in fact, the cover fell off while I was reading. Oh, well. I think MacDonald would be wonderful beach reading.
Emily — oh, no, no upside-down roller coasters, please. Please! I’ve never been on one and don’t plan to EVER.
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Poor Hobgoblin–he definitely deserves a break! Glad he’s feeling better now. I’m with you on buying clothes. I love book shopping or window shopping if I’m somewhere that has unusual gift shops, but I pretty much despise any other sort of shopping–particularly for clothes. I had to guess on a few, but I think I got all the book questions right.
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Danielle — well, the last race went well, thank goodness. And hopefully it will tomorrow too! I’m glad to find so much solidarity when it comes to clothes shopping, particularly since that’s something women are “supposed” to like.
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Catching up on my blogs and this was a fun way to get to know you better. Wow re the six siblings, and I was happy to see that I got at least four questions right. Perhaps a noir picnic would involve eating potatoes upside down with a lot of action while someone reads DH Lawrence? (Or would that just be torture?) Anyway, I’m also hoping Hobgoblin gets his (figurative) protective bubble suit.
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Pete — ha! This made me laugh. that sounds like a good description of a noir picnic to me! So far Hobgoblin has stayed safe, thank goodness.
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