I thought Angelina looked thinner than normal. I couldn't believe how thin and unheallthy her arms were. Her unnatural pose with the exposed leg was a little odd during her presentation. Not sure how funny she thought it was when the winners she announced mimicked her pose. Meryl Streep looked like an oscar in her gold dress which turned out to be very appropriate. I noticed there was a lot less jewelry worn. All in all I thought everyone looked great. I give Billy Crystal an A++++ as Oscar host, he nailed it yet again!

Rockybird, you had some childhood adventures didn't you?!? One of my sisters was always a wanderer as a child; back in the '60s parenting was definitely more free-range so she used to go all over our neighborhood unsupervised, which at the time was a relatively new development with lots of fields, woods etc. We lived in a military town which also meant lots of men around and I remember her at one point coming home to tell our mom that someone she met out in the woods was 'bothering' her. That turned out to be a guy who had been exposing himself to my 8-year old sister, repeatedly! OMG, I still recall how shocked and upset my mother was about that. She had no idea what had been happening and evidently my sister just wasn't fazed by the whole thing. Looking back as an adult myself she and my family are extremely fortunate nothing worse happened. Tish, nothing as serious as your story but here's another Bad Mother memory from my files: both my husband and I are/were not terribly interested in food and eating. We are both eat-to-live types and for a long time our dinners were relatively informal to say the least. Till one night when my daughter was ~7 YO she came to me just before bedtime insisting she was so, so hungry. I couldn't understand why until I asked my husband what he had fed her because I thought he'd taken care of that. He looked at me blankly, then asked what *I* had given her because he thought I'd done something for dinner! Talk about feeling awful...that was the start of my many year 5-night a week family dinner schedule (the other 2 nights were leftover and pizza nights). I never missed feeding the kids dinner again :). And while I'm here, one from parenting my son, teenage category. He, at my insistence, went to the senior prom. He wasn't dating anyone so took a girl who was a friend and he also told me the next day offhandedly that he had driven a group of kids home from the prom which was held on South Beach. A few days later I had gotten annoyed at something he hadn't done, homework I think, and was ripping him about being irresponsible, not doing what he should etc. He lost his temper and blurted out that 'driven a group' meant that all the kids he drove home were blind drunk and he was worried they would get hurt so volunteered to get them home safely which meant he had to drive literally to the south end of our county from the north end (SoBe) taking various people to their houses. Not only that, his 'date' ended up drunk-dialing her ex boyfriend to try to hook up with him while my son was taking her home then proceeded to vomit out the window of the car all the way to her house. I'll never forget my son saying to me 'mom, you have no idea what I had to do because I was the only one who wasn't blasted out of my mind!'. Talk about feeling like the world's worst mother!

Now that my brain has emerged from lockdown dullness, I have been reading Hugo nominees as fast as I can. I have just started on the final novel*, and am about halfway through the short stories. I have not yet read the other short form fiction - novellas and novelettes. I'll vote on them if I get to them. Here is my opinion so far of the novels, always the most important category for me. The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor; Titan) It turns out that I read this book months ago, and had completely forgotten it. Guess I'm not going to vote for it. The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (Saga; Angry Robot UK) Military SF in a future ruled by some very nasty tyrant corporations. I found it to be very well done, a complex net skillfully woven, and resolved to sense by the end. So far I am considering it and one other. A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK) This is the other one I liked a lot, complicated political infighting and plotting in a future empire. I love this stuff. Again, very well done. Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing) I began this book and very quickly disliked it enough that I did not finish it. If I were a professional critic I would have to push myself to read on to the end, but I am not. Definitely not voting for it. The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK) I enjoyed, but did not love, this novel. An interesting but not compelling story. Both The Light Brigade and A Memory Called Empire engaged me to the point I could not put them down. This one did not. But the author was also nominated for the short story award and so far I like her short story the best. I do like her writing. Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) Hated it. Think Gormenghast with necromancers. If we were required to rank them (we can if we want to), I would place this one dead last. * Since I first posted this, I read as much of Gideon as I could stand, and knowing I would never vote for it, quit.

SueB that is a great poshmark find!I love that site. Jsk I flew by myself for the first time when I was six or seven, shipped off to an aunt for a few weeks in summer before I started going to sleepaway camp. I was dressed to the nines for that flight — dress, hat, small pocketbook, gloves and white leather Mary Janes with turned down ankle socks. I was on my best behavior as one often is when dressed very nicely and I felt very pleased and grown up flying alone. I guess that whole experience was a template for me because I still endeavor to look as nice as I possibly can as a credit to the wonderful privilege of travel. I sometimes wonder if people would behave better on airplanes (and in general in public) if they didn’t wear pajamas and fuzzy houseshoes on board.🤔 FWIW though I do understand the whole comfy athleisure dress on a plane even though I go in the opposite direction.