Hello, Peaches. It’s nearly 2026. Are we all in one piece? Barely? Not at all?
I’d like to share a true story with you, before dropping my list of favorite reads of 2025.
We recently paid some money to redo our front yard. It was similar but not equal to a blackmail payment intended to prevent our HOA from chasing us down and breaking our kneecaps issuing a monthly fine for the unbelievable crime of having a patch of dead grass in Central Texas. (Gasp.)
While we were attending to the dead patch, we also took the opportunity to address a longstanding and challenging situation with a neighbor.
There is an elderly gentleman who, I believe, immigrated to the US some years ago. To exercise, he takes frequent walks up and down our street. For many years, each time he passed our house, he would sit atop the cable box on our property to catch his breath and do some upper-body calisthenics that looked a bit like a giant ladybug hoping to take flight. Good for him for keeping active.
The problem with that was twofold:
- The cable box is objectively not a good place to sit. It is not stable, and do you see that hole on the lower left? There could easily be live snakes or wasps or cockroaches or or fire ants or raccoons in there!
- The gentleman kept stepping on whatever I planted in front of the box and killing it. Granted, a few $3.99 pots of gregg’s mistflower are objectively less important than the risk of this gentleman getting bit by a rabid raccoon, but still. I liked those flowers, and they are great pollinators.
Our landscaper proposed putting in all these big rocks that do not make it easy to walk on, plus a spiky agave plant:
Pretty good idea, right?
That gentleman walker was hella determined, however. He totally climbed over the rocks, with his cane, and continued to take his breaks and do his ladybug calisthenics right there on that nasty green box.
My husband didn’t say anything to him. Instead, he would just turn on the sprinkler, which was funny but also a little bit mean. (No, the walker was not actually present when the sprinklers turned on. Just when he was on his approach.) While this worked on a case-by-case basis, this strategy ultimately caused our walker to simply scowl and grumble and then come right back and sit there once the nasty green box dried off.
Finally, I took the direct approach. I invited the gentleman to sit down instead on the chairs we recently purchased for the new patio which now sits in place of the dead patch of grass.
Peaches, he was delighted! He expressed such joy, it nearly shamed me. “Madam, I have been sitting here on this box for fifteen years, and it is not good!” he told me. (Yes, sir, I might have told you as much.) “A chair will be so good.”
We eventually agreed that he would sit on the small concrete table, which is easier for him to stand up from:
“Please, madam,” he said. “Tell your husband how grateful I am!”
I mean, sure, buddy. Remember that my husband was the one who just wanted to spray you with water like a cat that wouldn’t stop jumping onto the countertops. This is all me here. But you’re welcome.
Anyway, one recent afternoon, my husband and I were returning from a walk of our own to discover the elderly gentleman walker sitting on his new thrown, the white concrete table on our patio. We were so delighted. “Hello, sir!” I said. “I’m so glad to see you sitting there.”
“Oh yes, madam!” he said, and proceeded to tell us what an improvement it has been for him, and what a joy it is to know one’s neighbors.
We were about to say more, when without warning, he hocked up a giant, GIANT loogie – like, the size of a ping-pong ball, I’m telling you- and spat it directly onto the front flagstone of our new patio. It was bright, quite solid, and it landed with a great splat upon the stones. Then he looked up to us, quite pleased.
We said nothing. We quickly hurried away and into our house, closing the door behind us.
I do not know what I will say to him when next he sits on our nice new table.
Best Reads of 2025
Not necessarily published in 2025. Just the books I enjoyed the most! (These are not affiliate links, and I didn’t get a free copy or anything. I just liked reading them.)
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. In the near future, a civil servant is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the refugee from the past known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore.
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio. A woman returns drunk from her best friend’s hen night to discover that her attic has suddenly begun producing an infinite supply of husbands.
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus. The five worst soldiers of their unit are tasked with euthanizing a soldier trapped in No Man’s Land, only to discover that it isn’t a soldier caught in the barbed wire: it’s an angel, shot down from Heaven.
The Melancholy of Untold History by Minsoo Kang. From the cover copy: “A history professor mourning his wife. His young protégé’s search for a path forward. Four witty mountain gods with much to say and not enough time to listen. A gifted storyteller bringing a world into being out of thin air.”
Bride by Ali Hazelwood. I’m not typically a romance reader, which is not to dismiss the genre. A young lady vampire is given away in an arranged marriage to a werewolf as a diplomatic measure intended to keep the peace between their two peoples. This one has great characters and dialog, and it’s hot.
Until next time, Peaches! May your 2026 be filled with the light of kindness. Be well.
Elizabeth Cobbe 
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