Is that one yours? Did you have any trouble getting everything working? I tried setting up Mint on mine (same year!) a couple years ago. The WiFi was a pain to get working, and the Bluetooth touchpad kept dropping out.

With bonus LeVar Burton, er, cameo

One of my teen twins decided to do my nails in black a few months ago, and I decided I kinda liked it, so I’ve periodically kept it up. I’m claiming it’s me going for a punk look.

My kids are much older now, but we always supported them watching Dinosaur Train, in which the clearly independently wealthy Pteranodon family with their adopted son (a t-rex) go on a mysteriously large number of vacations via a maybe-magical train to visit other dinosaurs in various climates and time periods.

We also liked PBS’s Word Girl, which mixes superpowers and grammar with kind of a Rocky and Bullwinkle style humor.

We loathed Octonauts and especially Littlest Pet Shop, both of which, sadly, my kids really enjoyed.

It helps to think of it very much as Canterbury Tales: a frame story in which a group of pilgrims traveling together have spare time and share their life stories. In this case there’s enough overarching story to make you want to know what happens when they arrive at their destination, but that’s not this novel. It is very much the following ones.

Specifically, a prison transport van taking a murderer to be executed collides with a truck toting toxic chemicals in the middle of a blizzard, in the peaceful town of Snowmonton. It’s amazing. I love this movie for being so over the top.

Korgle?

I knew Tendi’s family house looked familiar!