The Joy Era: Welcome, Summer!

reading, watching, listening, cooking, practicing

Hi, hello, howdy. Welcome to the Joy Era! What’s good this week? Let’s dive in!

Yesterday was officially the first day of summer, and I AM SO READY. I’ve already conducted some of my seasonal opening ceremonies to personally welcome the season, but I thought I’d share more about what’s bringing me joy as we officially begin summer together (at least here in the northern hemisphere haha). 

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Reading: Summer Reading Guides  

Fiction Matters Paperback Summer Reading Guide. Y’all might already know that this lovely literary society is probably the biggest influence on my reading life, but I might not have fully gushed about how much I love the Paperback Summer Reading Guide that Sara puts together every year. This resource feeds my literary soul all year long! If you trust my reading taste, I know you’ll love it too!  Learn all about it here.

Seattle Book Bingo! Every summer the Seattle Public Library partners with Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) to create a Summer Book Bingo card for adults. If you make a bingo or a full blackout, you will be entered to win some fabulous prizes! Even if you don’t live nearby and won’t enter for the prizes, it’s still a delightfully creative way to curate your summer reading with prompts that might push you out of your comfort zone and challenge you to read something you might not have otherwise picked up. I’ve been a long-time book bingo player, and this year’s prompts are really exciting! Download your own bingo card and don’t forget to use the hashtag #BookBingoNW2024 when you share on social media. 

Powell’s Book Bingo! Similarly, one of the best indie bookstores of all time– Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon– is also hosting a summer bingo challenge. Download the card here to peruse the prompts (even if you can’t enter for prizes, it’s still so fun)!  

Novel Pairings: Big Book Summer. This has become one of my favorite summer reading practices over the past few years, beginning with Lonesome Dove, then The Odyssey, and now Les Miserables. I haven’t had a lot of new book reviews to post lately, because I’m just totally immersed in Les Mis right now! It’s plotty and page-turny, while also being meandering and philosophical. Beyond being immersed in the story (on the page and in my ears, tandem reading and listening), I’m really attached to this book as a physical object— that satisfying paperback flop, the smooth heavy-weight paper, even the deckled edges. It’s become a comforting companion. Sinking into a very long book has been a really nice way to detox from decision fatigue, to simply commit to one book and not have to keep deciding what to read next. It’s also been a great way to calm my FOMO related to all the new releases and summer reading guide picks and hyped up bookstagram darlings. It’s helping me quiet other voices so I can hear my own, and be clearly guided by my own taste. Very much enjoying this reading journey and can’t wait for our book club chat next week. 

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Watching: Six Degrees of Summer TV  

Y’all, there are so many great things to watch this summer– and several shows have dropped / are dropping new seasons this month. A few weeks ago, I desperately needed something to bridge the gap between May and June when I could pick up these new seasons. Someone recommended Extraordinary (Hulu), and it was PERFECT. In this quirky British comedy, everyone gains a superpower when they turn eighteen. Well, almost everyone. Some folks, like Jen, are apparently late bloomers? But at twenty-five, Jen is starting to get tired of the prying questions and pitying looks, and starting to wonder if it’s ever going to happen for her. But even with superpowers, being a young adult is tough! Jen’s roommates / best friends might have powers, but that doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with making it through the work day and building healthy relationships and just knowing what they’re doing. One of the strongest emotional chords of the show is the way Jen is processing the grief of her dad’s death when she was young. In several ways, it reminds me of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist– primarily for the tender and honest portrayals of young women grieving dead fathers far too young, but also the quirky super-power premise and these manic-pixie-gingers.   

The thing about ensemble casts is that I can’t help playing “six degrees of separation” with other television shows. I don’t know if y’all remember this, but Ken Jennings, beloved Jeopardy! Super-winner, used to write a feature for Mental Floss magazine called “Six Degrees” where he connected two unrelated things, like Benedict XVI and Benedict Arnold. As I was connecting the dots between Extraordinary and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, it seemed that all these shows would be great summer watching, so I thought I’d share with you!  

• Extraordinary stars Siobhán McSweeney as Mary, Jen's mother, and Ardal O'Hanlon as Martin, Jen's deceased father (voice over). I cannot see Siobhán McSweeney and not think of her amazing performance as Sister Michael in Derry Girls. Ardal O'Hanlon also makes a brief appearance in Derry Girls, so let’s follow the Irish connection. 

• Derry Girls is another coming-of-age story like Extraordinary, set in Northern Ireland during the 1990s. I love the friendship and the earnest teenage angst. Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, and Nicola Coughlan are DELIGHTFUL. Nicola Coughlan’s name is everywhere right now (for good reason!) as the latest season of Bridgerton has just dropped on Netflix.  

• Bridgerton isn’t new news, but I must confess that I did not watch it until this spring, and truly Nicola Coughlan deserves every good thing. In this latest season, we see several new-comers and other wallflowers stepping into the spotlight. Lady Danbury’s brother, Lord Marcus Anderson, seems to be a potential love interest for Momma Bridgerton (good for her!) and I knew I had seen Daniel Francis before… In an oldie-but-goodie, Once Upon A Time (season 7) where fairytale characters are cursed by being sent to the real world (*gasp*).    

• Once Upon a Time also feels very Bridgerton adjacent. I mean Penelope’s sisters and mother are very Cinderella-coded, and scheming to unmask Lady Whistledown has echoes of Rumplestiltskin, right? Plus, the costumes. Seriously!! I confess I watched all of Once Upon a Time back in peak pandemic times, and it was definitely fun in a soapy kind of way. Here’s my hot take: the best seasons are the first and the last, and truly I think the last season stands on its own and is all you need to watch (if you want to). Season 7 is set in Seattle, with lots of fun familiar landmarks for me, and it’s this season that features Daniel Francis as the fairytale character Dr. Facilier (The Princess & The Frog) along with Mekia Cox as Tiana and Jeff Pierre as Naveen. Jeff Pierre is a really great TV boyfriend– he reprises a boyfriend role in Walker (a reboot of the classic Walker Texas Ranger). 

• Walker is truly a perfect summer show if, like me, you’re absolutely still in your cowgirl era or just craving a little bit of Texas in the summer. Ever since reading Lonesome Dove a few years ago, I always need a little dose of cowboys in the summer, and I do not apologize. Jeff Pierre plays Trey Barnett, who is first introduced as the boyfriend of Walker’s partner, Ranger Micki Ramirez… but it seems like there’s more to come for his character? TBD! In the show, Micki is the first Latina woman to be a Texas Ranger, and I am so here for this! Speaking of Latina representation, we have to talk about Jane the Virgin…

• Jane the Virgin is at once an homage to classic telenovelas and something so much more. Like all of the shows already mentioned, this is also a story about processing grief. Without giving away spoilers about big plot points, there is a mom character in Jane the Virgin played by Molly Hagan, who also plays a mom character in Walker. Honestly, if it’s not Molly Hagan playing a mom, it’s gotta be Mary Steenburgen, who plays the mom in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.  

• Ta-dah! Six degrees, from Extraordinary to Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. Let me know if you’ve seen any of these or if anything intrigues you!

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Listening: New Summer Playlists  

I put together an absolute monster of a playlist with new-to-me music for summer, mostly the newest releases from artists I already love, but also some new-to-me artists that I want to listen to more consistently. This is maybe the only playlist I have ever made that’s meant to be played on shuffle, like old school radio style. 

I also curated a more tightly focused playlist that captures my right-now kinda summer mood: wildchildsummergirl. (and don’t you dare put this one on shuffle.)  

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Cooking: A Weekly Cold Dish  

Recently, I had an epiphany while talking to some friends about what to cook in the summer when you don’t want to stand over a hot stove or have the oven on. We wanted something best served cold, something we’d pack up in our tupperware and bring to a picnic, something we can eat straight from the fridge. When I moved to this part of the country, I learned the term “covered dish” or “hot dish”-- usually a casserole situation that folks bring to a potluck or picnic or meal train. But for summer, I don’t want a hot dish, I want a cold dish! We immediately started a collaborative document to pull together all our best recipes for Cold Dish Summer. 

This week, I made: Macaroni Salad With Lemon and Herbs (New York Times Cooking) 

A perfect cold dish! A few personal edits: I loved leaning into the bright, acidic, herbaceous flavor here! I dialed up the dill and lemon, plus I added red onion for extra crunch and a little bit of contrasting color. Next time, I might add canned salmon for protein (a fresh take on that tuna salad my grandma used to make all the time).   

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Practicing: My Summer To-Do List 

Last month I shared a list of 35 things I want to do in my 35th year, and it inspired me to make a more specific summer bucket list. Here are a few things I’ve already checked off:

• Take an art class! I attended a free intro class at the library.    

• Go to a baseball game! Loved going to the opening day of our local minor league team. 

• See a comedy show! Caught a super fun improv show while visiting San Diego.  

• Float the river! This is apparently a big deal around here, and today will be my first time! 

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That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in! Let me know what’s bringing you joy this summer season. And if this content has been joyful and helpful for you, I would love for you to share it with others, and consider buying me a coffee to support my work.

With grace, peace, and much love,

Rev. Alicia

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