halfcactus | Happy New Year + December media log

Happy New Year! Enjoy these sleeping birbs.

My dad who was debuting his first time of being on soup duty somehow managed to fail by both overthinking and going a bit rogue, so we were like... maybe CNY. XD My SiL improvised another soup with extra bits of fish and other ingredients, so it was all good! My contribution (as someone who can't cook) was a somewhat minimalist chicken macaroni salad, which is classic and practical—someone gave us a box of apples—and also kind of boring, but it turned out to be a hit. I guess it is a light side dish AND (to my parents) a dessert. XD

We dug up our dusty mahjong set and taught my SiL to play. I haven't played in more than five years (maybe ten!), so I benefited from the recap and won most of the games... I'd like to believe it's because that I've grown wiser hahaha. My ability to count shapes and follow sequences has gone down though... I kept announcing the wrong number of objects in the tiles I was discarding, oops.

December Media Log

Books/Comics

Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone, "This Is How You Lose the Time War"

Mosab Abu Toha, "Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear"

Winnie Chua, "A Walk in the Park"

June Dao, "perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood"

TV

An Ancient Love Song (2023)

Blossoms Shanghai (1/30)

Girls5Eva S1 (2021)
A short sitcom about a 90s girl group trying to make a comeback starring Renee Elise Goldsberry and Sara Bareilles. Very fun songs with the right sounds! Character storylines are quite segmented, with only Winnie feeling like she has a complete arc (and with such strong and entertaining diva energy), but I really liked the last few eps and, naturally, the finale number.