Started: 7/21/18
Finished: 7/29/18
Interesting way to look at reincarnation (kind of reincarnation, kind of immortality), but I feel like the story went off the rails towards the end. Pretty good, didn’t love it.
Started: 7/17/18
Finished: 7/21/18
I’m really not sure if I liked this. It was interesting, and there’s an open question about the abilities the kid had (Did he actually have them? Did those things really happen?), but aside from that, it’s about a teenager, his relationships, and his eating disorder.
Started: 7/12/18
Finished: 7/17/18
Entertaining, but not great. Superheroes are a thing, but the main character is the assistant to one of the heroes because she’s afraid of her own powers and blah blah blah. It wasn’t exactly gripping.
Started: 7/6/18
Finished: 7/12/18
It’s a Baba Yaga story, it’s an Alice in Wonderland story, and of course it’s neither of those, but it was really good, and I really enjoyed the characters.
We’ve FINALLY started to shop for baby stuff, and we’ve come to the decision that we need two bassinets: one for our room and one for downstairs. We have one (thank you very much to John’s parents), but we’re looking for a second one and WHY is this so hard?
Well, the vast majority of bassinets fall into two distinct, EXTREMELY DIFFERENT, categories.
First, the overly ruffled, gag-me-cutesy ones:
Second, the laundry baskets:
If I HAD to choose between only these extremes, I’d probably pick the laundry basket style. I’m just not that into ruffles… The one we have already is one of the VERY few in the middle. Maybe we’ll get another one just like it.
I took my first art class EVER (well, since 5th grade) last night, and it was pretty neat. It’s the first of six sessions, Monday nights, and there are five of us. Okay, there are nine of us, but four people are returning students who are well ahead of the rest of us. And based on what I could see of the other newbies, they’re all better than me, but hey – that’s why I’m taking a class.
The instructor is this old guy, Don, who shuffles across the floor, has a fairly dry sense of humor, and is pretty blunt. He had us all fill out some basic information about ourselves – what experience we have, why we’re taking the class, whether drawing has anything to do with our jobs, what level we think we’re at – and then he read them out loud to everyone.
“Zannah…she thinks she’s a beginner…NO experience since elementary school?!? Not in high school?” “I took the music path.” “Hmph.” Similar for the others, although at least one has more recent drawing experience. The others apparently just have more natural talent.
Favorite line of the night:
“I’ll ask you to tape down your paper. I will rip the tape for you because I teach children. I will repeat instructions multiple times because I teach adults.”
He started by asking us to draw vertical lines an inch apart, all across the page. Then he said to erase the worst ones and fix them. I erased all of mine. Then we progressed to drawing things we could see – angles, shapes, flower pots. He very briefly showed us shadows and then it was 9pm and time to go. But I get to go to an art store this week and buy stuff!
Exciting.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was rhapsodizing about them, but lately, the LAST thing I want is a hot shower. Our townhouse doesn’t have AC. (Our new house doesn’t either, but it’s much better insulated and it’s pretty shady there.) We have a portable unit we bought in Oregon that vents out the window, and the townhouse had one regular window unit when we moved in. It wasn’t TOO big of a deal last fall because we moved in September and we only had a couple of really hot days before the cooler weather started. Now, though, it’s HOT. We’ve had several days in a row of 90+ degree weather, and the house is pretty much unbearable.
We’re keeping the window unit running in our bedroom 24/7 (can’t wait for that electric bill), and it’s the only room that feels nice to sit in (with, of course, no place to sit other than the bed). We moved the kitchen table and the portable unit into my office, so John and I are working together in the only other air-conditioned room in the house. Fortunately, it’s been a quiet week for meetings so we’re not getting on each other’s nerves. Unfortunately, the portable unit can’t keep up, so we’re still dying.
Today, even though it’s our first sub-90 degree day in a week, it’s still too warm in the house, so we’re camped out at Starbucks.
That is not the point I was going to make when I started writing. My original point was that COLD SHOWERS ARE THE BEST. Truly, that is not something I ever thought I would say. It has become a necessity to take an actual cold shower before bedtime, both to clean off the sweat that’s accumulated all day long and to cool down before sleeping in the only cool room in the house. AND IT FEELS SO GOOD. It’s so hot in the rest of the house, bathroom included, that I find myself lingering under cold freakin’ water. Maybe this is related to the pregnancy thing, too, but except for one incident, John has been as hot and uncomfortable as I’ve been. We were watching TV, relatively cool, and all of a sudden I was like, “John, I need you to point the fan directly at me, I am so hot I can’t stand it please hurry up”.
Not to worry – I can find something to complain about in the only cool room in the house, too. The window unit can only go in the window at the foot of the bed (lack of outlets and appropriate extension cords), and the air (which cannot be directed) blows directly on the pillows in the middle of the bed. When I’m sleeping on my left side, like I am supposed to do, facing the middle of the bed, it blows directly on my face. Consequence? I wake up every morning congested with a drippy throat.
When will life be perfect, huh?
Started: 7/5/18
Finished: 7/5/18
Cute story (novelette) about robots when people aren’t around.
Started: 7/4/18
Finished: 7/4/18
I wanted to like this one more (because I really enjoyed her Hugo-nominated novella), but it was maybe a bit too “these kids today” for me.
Started: 7/4/18
Finished: 7/4/18
One of my favorites of the Hugo-nominated novelettes (the other being the other robot one – it seems I like robots), this one was really sweet.
Started: 7/4/18
Finished: 7/4/18
This novelette is set in the same universe as Ninefox Gambit, which I wasn’t crazy about. I did enjoy this story, very much, but I’m not sure I would have if I’d read it first.
Started: 7/4/18
Finished: 7/4/18
I’m not sure I liked this novelette. The magic was odd, the setting was interesting, but I didn’t get enough background or explanation to get into the story.
Started: 7/4/18
Finished: 7/4/18
Interesting novelette about a future where food is cloned/printed.
Started: 7/3/18
Finished: 7/3/18
Sad but really good short story about remaining true to and also exploiting Native American history.
Started: 7/1/18
Finished: 7/3/18
I loved this book. It’s fantasy – boy finds himself in a land with elves and mermaids and so on, which is always good for me – but the characters (all teenagers, followed from age 13 to 18) are written so realistically it’s easy to forget this is fantasy. (Fantasy novels don’t always do characters justice.)
Started: 6/27/18
Finished: 7/1/18
Slavery in space. Set on a generation ship so far from its beginnings that no one questions the structure, our main character is probably meant to be on the spectrum and has enough medical skill to have some freedom while still working within the system. It’s good, with a mystery at its center, and some interestingly misunderstood characters, but a pretty serious read.