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Evergreen of Celeste
Jan. 9th, 2019 08:48 pmI guess I should just give up and admit I'm not feeling well, for whatever reason. I'm having a bedtime snack of Advil and ice water. We went for a walk today because I needed to get out of the house and move around. It was so much work to assemble all my warm stuff and put it on: wool layer, Navy fleece, woolly socks, boots, hat, scarf, mittens. Bah. But necessary, because it felt FREEZING out and was snowing for the first time in ages. Really, it was only 20 degrees. That's not cold for January in Michigan! That's normal! We've just been spoiled by the unusual weather. By the time we finished the walk, I felt reasonably warm again.
When we stepped out of the house, we were accosted by some workmen who had been busy at our neighbor's house. Alan, as he introduced himself, wanted to point out that one of our roof vents needed to be re-seated and have a new boot put on--which he just happened to have with him. I felt somewhat suspicious of two semi-dilapidated strangers in a beat-up truck, but his offer seemed reasonable. He did as proposed, and also replaced a loose shingle and nailed a sagging gutter up more securely, so all in all, a pretty good deal. He gave us his number in case we want him to come back in the spring and do a power-wash to the siding. Dilapidated or not, you have to respect a guy who is out in this cold weather hustling for jobs.
Sometimes when I don't feel good, doing stuff around the house helps to distract me, so I myself was looking for jobs. I put away all the laundry and washed up a bunch of pots and pans the Sparrowhawk had not gotten around to. Meanwhile, he went into his Carlo mode and secured a room reservation in Dublin for us and ordered a wedding gift for his nephew, who is getting married this weekend. I don't know if we'll actually use the reservation. One of the questions I'm pondering is how much more energy I want to invest in what has been a losing proposition for me of late--cons, that is, and trying to take part in the SFnal community. I might want to take a time-out and do something else for a change. But this has yet to be determined.
The Sparrowhawk is re-reading K.M. Peyton's Pennington trilogy. (Pennington's Last Term, The Beethoven Medal, and Pennington's Heir) I delivered a long rant before breakfast about some of the author's irritatingly unrealistic plot choices. This is what I've come to--obscure critiques of ancient YA novels that no one cares about any more anyway. Sigh. Nevertheless, Patrick Pennington remains one of the most engaging young thugs in a long line of surly YA heartthrobs. You want simultaneously to make him a sandwich and warn him off with a baseball bat from ever dating your daughter. It helps that he's a concert pianist of astonishing potential. I'm re-reading Walking Home,by Sonia Choquette, on my phone. It's about a woman whose life falls apart, so she goes on the Camino and walks across Spain. I enjoy reading about her misadventures and total lack of preparation, as well as her solitary emotional meltdowns. It's all good fun when it's happening to someone else! I'm also reading the confusingly titled Of Blood and Bone. It's NOT Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi. It's the much more conventional second novel in a trilogy by Nora Roberts, in which a magical plague has destroyed life as we know it. The One who shall save the world is now a 13 year old girl. A friend gave me a nice boxed set of N.K. Jemisin's Hugo-winning Broken Earth trilogy, which I should be reading, but I haven't nerved myself up to it yet.
When we stepped out of the house, we were accosted by some workmen who had been busy at our neighbor's house. Alan, as he introduced himself, wanted to point out that one of our roof vents needed to be re-seated and have a new boot put on--which he just happened to have with him. I felt somewhat suspicious of two semi-dilapidated strangers in a beat-up truck, but his offer seemed reasonable. He did as proposed, and also replaced a loose shingle and nailed a sagging gutter up more securely, so all in all, a pretty good deal. He gave us his number in case we want him to come back in the spring and do a power-wash to the siding. Dilapidated or not, you have to respect a guy who is out in this cold weather hustling for jobs.
Sometimes when I don't feel good, doing stuff around the house helps to distract me, so I myself was looking for jobs. I put away all the laundry and washed up a bunch of pots and pans the Sparrowhawk had not gotten around to. Meanwhile, he went into his Carlo mode and secured a room reservation in Dublin for us and ordered a wedding gift for his nephew, who is getting married this weekend. I don't know if we'll actually use the reservation. One of the questions I'm pondering is how much more energy I want to invest in what has been a losing proposition for me of late--cons, that is, and trying to take part in the SFnal community. I might want to take a time-out and do something else for a change. But this has yet to be determined.
The Sparrowhawk is re-reading K.M. Peyton's Pennington trilogy. (Pennington's Last Term, The Beethoven Medal, and Pennington's Heir) I delivered a long rant before breakfast about some of the author's irritatingly unrealistic plot choices. This is what I've come to--obscure critiques of ancient YA novels that no one cares about any more anyway. Sigh. Nevertheless, Patrick Pennington remains one of the most engaging young thugs in a long line of surly YA heartthrobs. You want simultaneously to make him a sandwich and warn him off with a baseball bat from ever dating your daughter. It helps that he's a concert pianist of astonishing potential. I'm re-reading Walking Home,by Sonia Choquette, on my phone. It's about a woman whose life falls apart, so she goes on the Camino and walks across Spain. I enjoy reading about her misadventures and total lack of preparation, as well as her solitary emotional meltdowns. It's all good fun when it's happening to someone else! I'm also reading the confusingly titled Of Blood and Bone. It's NOT Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi. It's the much more conventional second novel in a trilogy by Nora Roberts, in which a magical plague has destroyed life as we know it. The One who shall save the world is now a 13 year old girl. A friend gave me a nice boxed set of N.K. Jemisin's Hugo-winning Broken Earth trilogy, which I should be reading, but I haven't nerved myself up to it yet.
