vital functions

[kaberett]

Celebrating. A's birthday!

Reading. Back in May last year skygiants posted a review of Vespertine (Margaret Rogerson). A couple of weeks ago my library acquired an ebook of same (having apparently previously had one but let it lapse). I have just inhaled it delightedly; reviews are very much still not my strong point but if skygiants makes it sound appealing to you, Definitely Recommended. I'm a bit sad that the Intended Sequels are no longer planned, but was soothed by the existence of author-provided spoilers available on the tumblrs should you wish to go hunting.

The library then also promptly provided me with another thing I'd put a hold on on the strength of the skygiants rec: Rooftoppers (Katherine Rundell). I found this one much less immersive than Vespertine but it was fun and I don't begrudge it the time even as I am grumbling away to myself in the corner about How People Work.

The latest Seanan McGuire Patreon short, The Invisible Event, would almost certainly have been less initially perplexing had I read it in continuity (Silver and Lead does not appear to be available anywhere I can lay hands on it, as has semi-consistently been the case with the Toby Daye books, sigh). I think pretty much all I have to say about this is: yep, that sure is a Toby short.

The Wood at Midwinter, Susanna Clarke: this one showed up to us In The Post. I enjoyed the endpapers! I enjoyed the mini-essay on Clarke's influences that appeared as the afterword! I enjoyed all of the other illustrations! I am probably going to keep hold of this copy rather than charity shopping it but I am mostly mildly annoyed about wanting the rest of the story (picture here me pulling the >:( face).

Dennis Duncan, Index, A history of the: picked this one back up at last! And then promptly had to put it down again in order to transcribe the following:

Looking back to the Library of Alexandria, it cannot be said for certain that the principle of alphabetical organization was the invention of Callimachus or his colleagues at the Mouseion. Nevertheless, given the lack of earlier evidence, and the appreciable requirements imposed by the accumulation of information on an unprecedented scale, it seems, in Lloyd Daly's measured phrase, 'a reasonable and attractive hypothesis'.

Also picked the reread of Zoe's Tale (John Scalzi) back up.

AND. Today's post brought me the absolute most indulgent and ridiculous of the latest round of Sad Cookbook Buying: ph10 -- pâtisserie pierre hermé, a ginormous French-only (with the exception of some of the snippets of praise quoted in the introduction) doorstop celebrating the first ten years of, well, Pierre Hermé, of whom I have basically zero awareness, but like... bullshit patisserie coffee book that needs indexing on EYB? marked down to a price I will almost certainly be able to recoup via eBay should I not decide to keep it myself? Look, I was very sad, okay? AND it means I am improving my culinary French!!! it's educational!!! I eventually got to looking up "QS"!!! ... which stands for "quantité suffisante", which I am sure we all agree is Extremely Helpful. The photography is exquisite, the recipes absurd, and I am going to have great fun dipping in and out of this (and looking up every third word).

I also: remain up to date with Dreamwidth; worked through a brief pain management course for Youth, as background reading.

Writing. The Document continues to be expanded a little every day. It is now over 4000 words.

Playing. A bit of The Bridge, "a 2D logic puzzle game that forces the player to reevaluate their preconceptions of physics and perspective", which sounded like it might be about the right speed for me given that we'd just enjoyed playing through the Monument Valley series, and which instead for the most part does not seem to fit into my brain terribly neatly and is also weirdly evocative/reminiscent of Braid (lonely dude in a suit) while also being kinda... gay? possibly? I can't tell yet? Anyway we've played through I think the first four levels and might or might not continue.

We have also engaged in some Spirits -- mostly A playing and me watching, because I am not feeling up to timing problems and having to keep pressing Esc also feels overwhelming, but I have been Providing Commentary and enjoying watching the process of TURNING MUSHROOMS INTO CLOUDS to HELP THE LEAVES GET HOME.

We have also been playing (independently) sudoku, & grousing about each other's incomprehensible approaches to solving things, and then I nerdsniped A with a specific puzzle & they went to look up Theory And Strategy Of Sudoku, and I may yet get around to uh actually looking up the approach named "jellyfish"...

Elsenet vass has introduced me to Squardle.

Cooking. One spice mix, and subsequently one recipe from East featuring a vegetable I think I have not previously consciously eaten (Jerusalem artichokes). Another batch of medlar sticky toffee pudding as A's birthday cake; I think that in fact one cannot tell the difference between medlar that has not been jellied and medlar residue from jellying, at least in this setting. Also, turns out you can successfully add beetroot to the red cabbage and cauliflower udon noodles thing. Oh, and pineapple fried rice, which A had somehow never previously encountered???

Eating. We were both, on Friday, quite tired and sad. The internet brought us Pizza Express. It was good.

Making & mending. I FINISHED A GLOVE. I WOVE IN THE ENDS. Now to cast on glove #2 of that pair...

Growing. Both orchids seem to be putting forth flower stems! And I have sown lemongrass, pineapple physalis, and (not expecting any of these to actually germinate) some lithops I was sent as a gift a while ago...

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Well done on the glove!