Kate Baker
@katebakergm
Giant nerd of many kinds (engineering, TTRPGs, books). Richmond, CA. I love the library and the farmer’s market.
There’s something interesting to me, with this book in particular, of having this little record that’s just a name of who came here before, hearing about all these cities from Marco Polo.
Yay, playing some Starfinder Society at EBBG today! This is a really nice convention in Oakland.
Do you miss being a kid and earning prizes for reading? Look no further than your local library’s summer reading program! There are specific programs for adults, so you aren’t taking prizes from kids. My local Richmond (CA) library gives you a free book and baseball passes just for starting!
We checked out “I Really Like Slop” by Mo Willems, and I’m pretty sure half these pages could be memes.
I am watching an excellent talk by @nidhiart.bsky.social at the Richmond Literacy Festival today! There are a bunch of her books available here to get signed.
I love when I request that the library acquire something and then they get it! I’m looking forward to reading Hello Sunshine by @keezyyoung.bsky.social
I haven’t checked in about #25booksin2025 for a while. I had a slow reading start to the year, but I started reading e-books on my phone on Libby, and it turns out I will read a lot of books that way. I crushed my goal. Here is everything I read last month! I got some spooky books for October.
We went to Roller Derby today! We saw the San Francisco Rolling Dead face off against the Oakland Outlaws at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium. My favorite part was when there was a pause for technical difficulties and both teams joined together in a conga line around the track.
This is very cute from the Oakland Public Library: a coloring book of all the branches!
There’s a fire in Antioch and they are issuing an evacuation warning. Stay safe, friends!
Take the fictional characters quiz and post the first four you know. openpsychometrics.org/tests/charac... I feel like my answer for “nerd” did a lot of the work here.
Local (East Bay) folks! Tomorrow is Richmond’s Literacy Festival, and it should be a great event!
Fully farmers market breakfast. (Ok, the maple syrup, butter, and I salt I used to candy the pecans weren’t, but everything else was.)
Book 4 of #25booksin2025 is Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire. This has been on my TBR list forever, and I really enjoyed it, though it was a lot darker than I realized it was going to be. I really enjoyed the dynamics between the students, and I loved the world-building and the mystery.
Book 3 of #25booksin2025 is System Collapse by Martha Wells! If you already love Murderbot, this one is a great addition to the series. If you haven’t read Murderbot yet, I can’t recommend the series enough. Kevin R. Free’s narration is fantastic as always.
Book 2 of #25booksin2025 for me is Start Here by Sohla El-Waylly. This is not just a cookbook, though it has plenty of recipes. There is tons of food science and food history, and plenty of explanation on how recipes work so you really understand what you’re doing in the kitchen.
My first book of reading #25booksin2025 is Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot by @runwithskizzers.bsky.social This is a sweet YA romance with a lot to say about what it means to be American. I enjoyed the nods to the teen rom coms of my own youth, and I adored the sassy footnotes.
Oldest selfie on my phone. Halloween 2014, and I was dressed as Rosie from Lumberjanes.
We started a tradition a few years ago of watching Casablanca on New Year’s Eve. If you’ve never watched it, I highly recommend it right now.
Kenji Lopez-Alt posted about making Earl Greggnog on Instagram and I had to try it for myself. It is very good!
Day 13 of the Bonne Maman Advent Calendar is 4 Fruits! The fruits are strawberries, cherries, red currants, and black currants according to the ingredients.
Day 12 of Bonne Maman advent calendar is Apricot Peach! This one is another classic.
Day 11 of the Bonne Maman advent calendar is Pineapple Yuzu! Pineapple doesn’t agree with me so @dkmuldoon.bsky.social got this one all to himself.
Day 10 of the Bonne Maman advent calendar: Raspberry Rose. The rose was very subtle and I would have liked a little more, though I know it can easily get overpowering.