The Mom Stays in the Picture On Mystic Lake; Kristin Hannah (1999)

On strength of The Women, I picked up a few Kristin Hannah books at a Fletcher Free Library book sale, and decided to start with the oldest of the three, On Mystic Lake, which in turn, according to the "Other books by" page, her eighth book.  The dust jacket proclaimed, "Kristin Hannah makes her hardcover debut" which initially surprised me -- I hadn't realized Hannah started as a softcover romance novelist and was now a little worried about my purchases. 😅

As it turns out, while On Mystic Lake has many of the earmarks of a standard romance novel, the kernel of the author who would write The Women is present, and it's an enjoyable read with (mostly) well-rounded characters and tackles thorny relationship complications.  

And wonderfully, on page 29, I was reminded of "The Mom Stays in the Picture": 

"There were almost no pictures of her.  Like most mothers, she was always behind the camera, and when she thought she looked tired, or fat, or thin, or ugly ... she ripped the photo in half and ditched it." 

... and then again later in the book:

"We're like that, we moms.  We take the pictures, but we don't record our own lives very well.  It's a mistake we never realize until it's too late..."

Confusion reigns: Evolving cyclist signage

 A friend recently sent me two images of streets that had been newly painted with "bike lanes".  The first is University Place, which runs north-south at the western edge of UVM's main campus.  It's a one-way road with standard solid line markings with a bicycle symbol inside the bike lanes to show that motorists should keep out.  (unless safely passing -- you can even cross double yellow lines in VT to safely pass) 

The second is of Queen City Park Road (QCP), which runs south from Home Ave and then makes a 90-degree turn left to run east to Shelburne Rd.  I have mostly driven on the short section that connects connected the end of Pine St to Shelburne Rd, but the initial section runs by Burton and is around where this photo was taken.  

The problem is there are people driving QCP that think it’s one way, so they drive in the middle of the road and avoid the bike lanes even if cars are headed toward them.

At first glance I assumed the bicycle symbol was a sharrow, indicating that the lane was a shared space, but on second glance realized it was the cyclist with single directional arrow, which usually indicates a dedicated bike lane.  

10-15 years ago I would have said this signage was *wrong*, and there should be sharrows on QCP to signal to drivers that they could use that space.  

Sharrows were still fairly new 20 years ago, and then quickly proliferated, but over time, everyone began to hate them (e.g., "We Were Wrong About Sharrows" and "Sharrows used to make sense in theory, but are now mostly useless and possibly dangerous").

It looks like Burlington DPW may be moving toward eliminating the sharrow symbol and always using the cyclist with single arrow to make motorists aware that cyclists may be in this space, and then use dashed vs solid lane lines to show shared vs dedicated bike lanes.  (I have written to DPW to ask if this is current policy)

Signage around cycling infrastructure is struggling to standardize, but it is relatively new and will likely need to continue to evolve.  Until it reaches a more final form, everyone will be a little confused.

Adventures in Tea: Irish Breakfast

Irish breakfast tea from VT Tea and Trading Co is bin #263 in City Market's bulk section.  The Wikipedia page says it's described as having a malty aroma; in the batch I drank, it was almost milky, as if it had been pre-added.  I remember that when I first tried Irish Breakfast (probably Twinings?) many years ago, it was too strong and bitter for my taste (I didn't then, and still don't, like to put milk or sugar in my tea), but now I quite like it.  And, like the Wikipedia page suggests, it's good at all hours of the day.

Irish Breakfast tea, loose leaf in my jar at home

Previous tea: Lipton Black

Adventures in Tea: Lipton Black

A few bags of this were left over from a kid's kombucha experiment. I do not have fond memories of Lipton's tea growing up.  AFAIK back then they only had the dreadful orange pekoe made from the leavings that couldn't be used for decent tea.  The "America's Favorite Tea" moniker simply means "we make the cheapest tea, and that's fine for making sweet tea, which is what we're being used for." As far as any caffeinated drink contributes to having a healthy heart... well, I guess it's better than soda.

All that said, I would be willing to drink this tea if it were available in a hotel room.  It is still greatly inferior to Nilgiri Blue Mountain as a plain black tea.

The box of leftover Lipton's black tea with tea bag

Previous tea: Nilgiri Blue Mountain

Adventures in Tea: Nilgiri Blue Mountain

Nilgiri "Blue Mountain" tea from VT Tea and Trading Co is bin #310 in City Market's bulk section.  The Wikipedia page says it's described as having citrus and floral notes; I do not detect that in the batch I drank.  This is just straight up black tea with nothing else added to it and it stands on the quality of the leaves.  It's quite good, and I would choose it when in the mood for plain black tea. 

Nilgiri Blue Mountain tea, loose leaf in my jar at home

Previous tea: Sherl Grey