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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

The Sunday Post #304

On The Blog Last Week

• On Tuesday, there was a book haul.

On The Blog This Week

• On Tuesday, I talk about childhood books that will never leave my book collection.

In My Reading Life

Last week, I finished Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. This book has amazing ratings on Goodreads, so unpopular opinion alert: I got bored with it. It wasn't what I expected, which is probably my fault and not the book's. I didn't read any reviews before I started it.

Great Circle is a thick historical fiction brick about a female pilot during Prohibition. The synopsis led me to believe that it was about a woman flying around the world. It's not. It's about a woman who wants to fly around the world, but she just has sex instead. I actually love the characters and the Montana setting. The author writes excellent nature descriptions, and the characters are believable. There are a lot of characters, but they're all very distinct. I never got confused about whose point-of-view I was reading. They feel like real, unique people. There are parts of the book that I raced through because I cared about the characters and wanted them to be okay.

I was less thrilled with the plot. This huge book covers the entire life of Marian, the pilot character. The chapters about her childhood are entertaining, but when she becomes a teenager, she starts bouncing from romantic relationship to romantic relationship. She does that for the rest of her life. It's realistic, but it's also repetitive. I just wanted her to fly around the world! I feel like I spent the entire book waiting for something big to happen. I got bored while waiting.

Right now, I'm reading Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I've only read 14 pages, so I don't have any judgments. I'm excited to see what the hype is about.

In The Rest Of My Life

This section is going to look different today because my life changed last week. I'm not even being dramatic. I feel like I have mental whiplash or something. I'm going to divide this section into two subsections: The Ridiculous and The Depressing. Feel free to not read them.

Subsection 1: The Ridiculous

Remember how I was applying for jobs I'm almost qualified to do? One of the jobs I applied for was park ranger. I've worked at a park for years, but I'm not a ranger. I do customer service and radio dispatch. I sort out customers' problems and then boss the rangers around on the radio until we get the problems solved. My job is basically long stretches of boredom and audiobook listening separated by sudden bursts of extreme stress. I don't hate it, but I've been doing it for years, and I want to try something new. That's why I applied to be a ranger.

I made it through a few rounds of applications and background checks and questions I had to answer. Then I got an interview. The interview sucked. It was kind of humiliating. All the questions were like, "What would you do in this potentially deadly situation?"

All my answers were like, "I'd potentially die because I'm not Bear Grylls; I'm an anxious potato with hiking boots!" I even turned a few of the questions into jokes because I had no idea what to say. If you're going to fail, you might as well be entertaining about it, right? At least the interviewers laughed. It would have been really awkward to bomb the interview and the jokes.

The interview was so stressful that I stopped at the store afterward and bought a bag of Cadbury Eggs and a book about historical serial killers to make myself feel better.

Fast forward to last week. I got an email from one of the interviewers. It said, "You're a park ranger now. Can you start in 4 days?"

Um . . . What?

Are you sure? Really, REALLY sure?

Do you want to double check if you emailed me by mistake?

I guess I'm a park ranger now? If you're reading this on the day I post it, I'm already at work. I probably won't be around the blogosphere much during the next 6+ months. My schedule will be intense until it snows in the fall and my hours get cut.

Subsection 2: The Depressing

My dog, Kiera, died last week. It wasn't completely unexpected because she was 13 years old and sick. Even though I spent thousands of dollars at the vet, nobody could figure out what was wrong with her. Last September, she started having seizures and losing her balance. Then she rapidly lost weight and lost hair and got skin infections that wouldn't go away. I stopped posting photos of her on social media because you probably would have had me arrested for animal abuse. She looked terrible. She was literally falling apart.

The house is too quiet now. After I brought Kiera's body to the vet, I went home and stared at the walls because Baby Brooklyn was at daycare and there was no sick dog to take care of. What was I supposed to do with myself? I've had dogs for all but 1 year of my life. I don't know how to be a dogless person.

Kiera was dumber than a box of rocks, but she was sweet and bouncy, and she was mine for 13 years. I miss her. I miss all my dogs. I want them back.

Kiera (black dog): 6/22/2008 - 4/21/2022

Cheyenne (brown dog): 10/31/2006 - 5/10/2018

Do You Have Mental Whiplash Now?

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!