Mother's doing pretty good now, her spirits are much improved. She doesn't have to go back to the doc until June 22, which sounds optimistic.

Anyway I just finished The Expats by Chris Pavone which was all in all a pretty good read. It combines a modern yuppie novel with a spy thriller.  Also, a female main character. Recommend.

For videos, Vengeance, a Japanese film, was very good.  Also, one I meant to get to long before now but didn't, probably because it's animated -- Grave of the Fireflies -- very worth watching. I don't remember the authors/directors but theyre easy to look up.