Off the Cliff

SND drops a card and a package of almond chocolates in my mailbox, so now I know how to spell her fiancé's name. Which turns out to be Arabic and thus makes problematic the bottle of wine I was going to give her for Christmas, once the steps became clear again. Of course I have no idea if he's even muslim or practising if he is, and she did give me wine when she first moved in. Oh well. Presumably she can take it to parties.

More gusty winds blew in rain and cold, putting an end to our false November, so I stayed indoors and finished Maskerade. Which is an end to my reread of the Witches arc unless I start on the Tiffany series. But Tiffany, for all she's hyped as YA reading, is much darker than the Witches IMO. The witches are a genial, largely comic, read, while Tiffany is anything but. Still militant decency but much more real world, just like the later Watch books.

I suppose I could have another bash at Raising Steam but hell. I want old women and there aren't many of those around.

Oh, and G, your parcel arrived safely and is waiting for Christmas to be opened.  Just so you know.

 Snow, slush, semi-melt: nasty weather, basically. But still went out to physio, shoving the walker through the recalcitrant berms. Something passed along the sidewalks at one point earlier: there were tire tracks a metre wide that hadn't cleared the slush but pushed it to either side, and in the middle a clear patch maybe a foot/ 30 cm wide ie not wide enoough for the rollator. Bobcats don't do that. I don't know what does that but it's remarkably inefficient. Thought the bobcats must have done Christie at least so took the side street over and no, no they had not. Was in fact worse than my street. But I pushed on, noting that-- cult though they may be-- the Jehovah's Witnesses alone had shovelled their frontage, and then the smoke house at the corner. Am sure this expedition counts as exercise, so go me.

Finished, I went over to Loblaws who hadn't shovelled either, obviously thinking the clear path under their overhang was sufficient to anyone's needs, and if one had to push through a sea of slush to get to the walkway, well, too bad. I hope I never have to use a wheelchair, even a motorized one. Of course there's still home delivery, and if Blawblaws persists in not having turkey roll, I may use it.

Coming home people either had shovelled or were shovelling, including in front of the vacant lot that will someday, in the far future, be yet more condos. I thanked the shoveller nicely, who grinned back at me and asked how I was doing. Obviously dire conditions bring out the best in Trawntonyans.

Finished Nancy Mitford's bio of Mme de Pompadour finally, so can put with the donatable books. Charles Finch, The Hidden City and Kashiwaba Sachiko's The Village Beyond the Mist. The last being a veeeery distant ancestor of Spirited Away, the only semi-common element being the character who turned into Yubaba. Also did a fast skim of Witches Abroad as a library ebook because I wanted something to read at the restaurant and Kobo is iffy on the phone.

Also finished the first set of Phantom Moon Tower side stories, some of which are parseable and some of which, um, aren't.

Then bought a couple of Dr Priestleys for the tablet because I need to get back to the bike machine. Though now am tempted to just reread Lords and Ladies and maybe Maskerade. This is hibernating 'line of least resistance' weather, and I have vodka and a comfy sofa. A pity to waste that on, say, the biography of Da Vinci.

The Shadow Book of Ji Yun is proving to be great fun. These are trufax! stories of things Ji Yun himself witnessed, or his relatives and friends. Already we've had an experience of Immortals confronting human beings in what the translators point out is very like an alien abduction, and a pair of stranded merchants in Tibet being rescued by what sounds like a group of yeti. There's also the father of Ji Yu's tutor, an inventor who constructed something similar to Pratchett's Gonne. The Chinese had firearms by this time but they were all single shot muskets. This man devised a repeating revolver that could shoot 28 times in a row. He was about to send it off to the military authorities but dreamed that night of an Immortal who chided him for creating such an instrument of death, so he swore never to make another and to keep this one hidden. A pity, I think.

Ji's childhood friend remembered his past life but forgot it bit by bit after the age of five: "...up to the age of four years he had very clear memories of his previous life-- including specific events,  friends,  and family members. But around the age of five these memories began to slip away-- tree by lover by co-worker-- until, in a few years, he only recalled that his former life's hometown was close to Chang-shan village..."

Ji himself, when a child, was able to see in the dark as if it were daylight "in a windowless and lampless house in the dead of night" but also started losing the ability about the age of seven. From time to time the 'light at night' ability would return but only for a split second.

One night he dreamed that his dead servant, who had been 'criminal and treacherous' in life, came to him and said, "I humbly offer my services to my master who has been conscripted into the army three thousand miles away." Next day one of his students gave him a black puppy, who went with Ji when he was exiled shortly thereafter, became very attached to his master during his time at the borders, and was indefatigible in guarding the baggage on their return. I don't know if Ji Yun suspected he was for the chop when he had that dream of being conscripted, but he was certainly convinced that the dog was his rascally servant come back to make amends.

I shouldn't really be all chuffed about having walked over to SND's and down the alleyway to check the vent, with just my staff to hold onto, but I did and I am. I've known for a while that I really need to start walking outside without the walker, but it's always easier, not to mention less painful, with. Must also go back to massage because the pain is from lower back and hip flexors rather than knees. And shall do when this  cruel war is over.

Otherwise have finished rereading Four Roads Cross and Full Fathom Five, and will start again on Ruin of Angels. I want that one in a trade paperback buf it doesn't come in trade paperback so must beaver through the bitsy-feeling print of the pocketbook size.

Reread also Good Omens, Pratchetty enough, though from the little I know, I think the TV series may have been better.

January staggers to a close. My physio remarked on how quickly the month had gone but then added the caveat, 'The days are long but the weeks seem short.' Mind, I can't remember anything that happened this month. It's just been January since forever.

More snow last night: quite a bit, judging by my front walk. But apparently a bobcat came by at some point and cleared the sidewalks down to the concrete, at least on my street. The south side of Dupont was a slush mixture while the north by Loblaws was as ever the great salt plain. Mounds of the stuff here and there.

Finished Thud and The Fifth Elephant (cherishing the gloomy and pointless trousers of Uncle Vanya); four Miss Silvers and a Simenon (the St Fiacre Affair, where he forgets to tell us who sent the anonymous letters that tip Maigret off); and Alice in Wonderland because I haven't read it in half a century and was distressed to find that somehow I don't even own a copy.

Am currently reading Thirteen Guests, a Jefferson Farjeon country house mystery (brother of Eleanor were you wondering) and another Miss Silver because they're like eating nuts. May eventually go back to Four Roads Cross but I don't understand hostile takeovers in business, much less when gods are involved. Will certainly start Night Watch because there's not much first rate Pratchett left to reread.

Colder than yesterday just because no sun and a freezing north wind, also maybe because couldn't wear longjohns under my trousers because physio. Did not die. Did get more Jack Daniels coolers though checkout clerk informed the guy behind me who commented on same that Loblaws was probably going to stop stocking American liquor onaccounta tariffs. I presume this is what s-i-l meant when she posted on Monday about 'time to hit the LCBO', and not 'time to get drunk and stay that way till 2026'. I should stop drinking anyway but won't until the nasty cold stops hitting my titanium knee.

Or will go to French wine and English gin.

Have finished yet more forgettable Golden Age mysteries and abandoned a couple of library books: Klara and the Sun because Ishiguro still fantods me even if wikipedia says there's a happy ending, and Interior Chinatown because too depressing and anyway if I want Chinese diaspora Wayson Choy is closer to home. Am rereading Thud because one needs Pratchett at times like this, and Four Roads Cross because I've forgotten it almost completely, and now I see why. How many plot threads are there in that book anyway? I remember it as something of a downer and so far it very much is, aside from my inability to figure out how gods and stock markets work. This is because I don't understand stock markets, of course. And then I may have to rereread Full Fathom Five so I can finally get around to Ruin of Angels, which is a paperback that ought to be a hardcover, and why isn't it, I ask me.

Anyway, The Premonitions Bureau is waiting for me at the library, and I look forward to that.

Well, that was the year that was. It rained. A lot. Which may be why I remember virtually nothing of it aside from the downpours. New year is set to snow, though tonight will just be more rain. Was going to go to the laundromat but it looked like, what else, rain so I just stayed in. Maybe the next clear day.

Ordered a new back brace in XXL since I'm not losing the tummy weight that would make the old one fit. It's the size of a Japanese obi and about as stiff, and of course it smells. Nothing will ease my lower back pain, including the things supposedly designed to do so.  Woe woe is me.

As for reading, yes I read a lot but of course it was all detective fic: all of Flavia Alba, a lot of E F Ferrars (good for a minimum 30 vols)(ETA 47) and E C R Lorac. Did at least reread Sense and Sensibility and a good ten Pratchetts and a couple of nonfiction books. Thus my uneventful retirement.

Had another Don' Wanna Get Up day because everything hurt so much, especially elbows, so stayed in bed till noon, drifting in and out of sleep. Got up to find the snow that was to start midday had already fallen and my Good Neighbour had shovelled my sidewalk and walkway, which was nice of him. Was still a grey cold dank day that I've spent on the couch. My physio wants me to do sit to stand exercises, three sets of ten reps, but that is certainly not going to happen today.

Good neighbour didn't do my steps so I had to when I put my garbage out mid-afternoon, because for sure am not doing it tonight in the dark. I seem to have misplaced my broom so had to manhandle the shovel with my twinging elbows. Broom may be on the back porch, though I can't think why it would be.

Physio's mom flew back to Korea yesterday, just in time for that attempted coup. Physio was perplexed as to why Yoon wanted to stick his neck out to ban online comments. I'm a bit perplexed myself.

Books finished?

Lorac, Fell Murder
-- nicely done though a bit landscape-heavy. There was actually a reasonable reason for the murderer being who it was

Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death
-- very nicely done mystery. Surely I've read Nigel Strangeways before, but though various of Blake's titles sound familiar, none tweaks the memory

Allingham, The Allingham Casebook and The Allingham Minibus
-- Campion shorts in the first, Campion shorts and weird tales in the second. Phone reading

Reading now?

Derleth, The Chronicles of Solar Pons
-- Holmes pastiche without the Holmes. Fun stuff

Blake, The Beast Must Die
-- another Strangeways

Next up?

Two more Nicholas Blakes in transit from the library, more Holmes pastiche on the Kindle. Really must start something heavier than whodunnits but will probably go for a reread of Thief of Time or The Hogfather instead.

Finished?

Austen, Sense and Sensibility
-- a handbook of how to behave online in these tongue-biting times. No, of course Austen wasn't instructing people to not read the comments and not feed the trolls, but it comes to the same thing. 

Lorac, Case in the Clinic
-- it's not that Lorac picks the least likely suspect to be the murderer, it's that she picks the person who was never a suspect in the first place.

Benson, A Case of Murder in Mayfair
-- well enough, though as ever when a piece of architecture is integral to the plot, I'm utterly unable to follow what happens.

Reading now?

Pratchett, Reaper Man
-- comfort read

Abandoned?

Both Sheine Lende (am I the only one who thinks that sounds Yiddish?) and Blackheart Man. Brain will not brain sufficiently for either.

Next?

Might go on with Northanger Abbey. Maybe another Death book.

Nice to get a gas bill for .17. Yes, seventeen cents, because the hot water heater now bills separately and I overpaid last time because winter is coming. Though not that fast because we seem to get a resurgance of summer weather once a week or so.

This was all cancelled out when I went to vacuum today and couldn't get the canister back on. Pulled and pushed the little button and it wouldn't click in and it was never this hard before ohh why isn't there some strong-armed person around to click my canister in place?? Eventually realized that canister looked a mite... short? Oh, the bottom part is missing. Must have come off when I rinsed it out the other day, it'll be in the drying rack. It was not in the drying rack. I looked carefully about the kitchen in case of Johnson Spot Blindness and no, no grey plastic circle to be seen. Could it have come off when I actually emptied the canister? It's not supposed to but, like, there's the lower catch and there the bottom isn't. In which case I'm SOL because the garbage went out yesterday, presumably with the canister bottom inside. So now I've ordered a new Dirt Devil for what gas ought to have cost me this month.

Spent the week reading Unseen Academicals. Still think it's a good book and Pratchett is always a consolation.

Still not that hot but muggy muggy ohh so muggy. Walking to library and my tony Korean restaurant, I had to put my backpack in the carrier because of the sweat: and that with a thin rayon top and cotton bra.  Nothing works in mug but gauze, which soaks up the wet. And no one makes gauze tops but this woman I used to go to in Stratford 45 years ago. I've never even seen the material for sale.

But sweat and allergies do mean I drink copious amounts of water which might, eventually, debloat my heat-bloated body. Otherwise all couch potatodom all the time. Though my phone gives me huge numbers of 'heart points' just for walking in the mug.

The rainy summer hasn't produced the 2008 effect of making TO look like Ireland, but it's encouraged the wild flowers to run rife in that narrow space that doesn't have a name, between the outside of people's fences and the sidewalk. Cosmos, lavender,  black eyed Susans need to be held in by twine or else their leaning stems take up half the pavement. May also be why the allergies are so bad this year.

It seems that all it takes to fantod me is a reread of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Why he fantods me is anyone's guess, but yeah. Have more Ferrars mysteries and The Science of Discworld 2 to take the taste out of my mouth.

I do like it when things work as they should. Feels like a gift from the universe. And for me, better than assuming they will, because the betrayal when they don't leaves me flailing.

So the fan that was so easy to assemble actually works!  No, I didn't expect it to. And had A Moment when the plug wouldn't fit in the outlet oh no maybe my outlet is too old and won't take the uneven sized modern plug. Or maybe the plug has a plastic guard on it which, once removed, allows it to fit easily into the outlet.

Called up my doctor's secretary, asked her to fax my blood draw requisition to the lab, sure, OK. Fifteen minutes later I get an email with a link to a portal to the requisition. And maybe she also faxed it to the lab but I'm not betting on it. So it's the library which will once again print from the web only the tsuris of doing so the last time is still with me. But shou ga nai, off I go. You can only use one computer for printing and a gentleman is already sitting at it.  But a librarian is hovering over him, so maybe he's trying to print too. And he gets up a minute later and the librarian says I can finish up his session, no need to log in again. And then it's essence of simplicity,  call up Chrome, call up my online email server, get the password right the second time, go to the portal, and hit print. And it prints! And now they don't charge and I don't have to load up my library card to pay it and go me!

Of course, getting me to the lab in the morning on no meds is another matter. But tomorrow should start out reasonable enough, even if it will swelter and thunder later on. We're in for a hot wet summer, they say, beginning next week, after the lovely unseasonable coolness of the last four days. Stats say we were due for one eventually because the last two or so were quite reasonable. Is why I didn't have to assemble the fan I bought last year until this.

Haven't been reading much, so only finished Sourcery and I think an Andrew Bassett. Should make more progress next week, which will be prime sitting in front of fans weather.

Well, that could have been more painful. The direct line the physio gave me was 'this number is not in service,' the booking dep't goes to lunch at 12:30 not 1, and I somehow got the MRI people not the CT scan ones. But I wasn't on hold for much more than ten minutes when I called at 1:30 and they don't play muzak. I have an appointment now in October (gulp) which she apologized for but apparently it's a much in demand service. So that's  done.

Finished Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, very pleasant as her books tend to be. Also 100 Demons 31, not all about the Niigata family but still with Ritsu trying to finish up his master's thesis.

Currently on Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries, a short term loan that I must persevere with, and the most recent Flavia Albia, whose blurb is a major spoiler, and Equal Rites, another 'somehow never read' Pratchett.

DNF Only a Monster: intriguing premise but lacklustre treatment and of course YA with mandatory love triangle, Y oh Y? Because mandatory, I suppose.

Have a Japanese novel waiting for me at the library which I can probably renew easily if it takes me longer than three weeks since no one has a hold on it.

Yes it did rain all day and is still doing it. For once I'm hoping it will change to snow as forecast because, boots or no boots, I need to get out tomorrow. Had no trouble staying in for four days two weeks ago but now it makes me antsy as all get out. Assembled my tax stuff no problem aside from an access of stupidity over 'where is my 2023 statement of account, why can I only find the 2022 one?' Because I haven't filed my 2023 tax yet so there's no statement of account yet. 

Finished The Amazing Maurice and All Systems Red, Murderbot coming in five weeks early. Should have put holds on the next vols because now I have to wait another theoretical ten weeks. Reread two Marcus Corvinuses, No Cause For Concern which really, aren't there enough real amoral people in ancient Rome without positing more, and Funeral Rites, about real amoral Romans.

Now reading Mort, which it seems I haven't read, and White Murder, because Corvinus is an easy reread. When I get out to the library again, I have Confronting the Classics and Translation State waiting, which will be nice.

Waste of a morning when I woke up early (for my values of 'early') and limber (ditto) and did not go down for blood work because it rained last night and the walker's wheels will get disgusting and I have nothing to clean them with. The bamboo cloth I use needs a serious wash in hot water and bleach, probably by hand since I can't do it at the laundromat and my machine won't handle hot. Maybe tomorrow...

Nice dream though of attending a party at Fearless Leader's place, an apartment 'around the corner' from Vice-fearless Leader's place (streets were more like alleyways in Tokyo shopping areas by the train stations) where I was staying. A number of other Chinese girls there (girl from my aged viewpoint = mid-twenties) and a Black guy who lived upstairs from FL and his little girl (= 18 months). Rolled over and dreamed of trying to find elevators in an expanded version of Robarts Library. Which I think owed something to the PO in Going Postal.

It's a pleasant enough life I lead these days‐ squaredle every morning, Questionable Content every (weekday) evening,  tiktok videos of sheep herding dogs (that's shepherding dogs, Border Collies to be precise) from which I learn that 'Come by' tells the dogs to go clockwise and 'Away' means 'go counter-clockwise', which Pratchett failed to inform me  in the Tiffany Aching books. Also Chinese webnovels at need. Approach the end of vol 3 of MDZS and discover the library doesn't own vols 4 & 5 in any form, alas. There are kindle versions for not excessive amounts though I'd hoped to be done with amazon and kindle for at least a month after having glutted myself on David Wishart through most of October. And in any case I have not merely two volumes of Heaven Official to get through but Hild as well, appearing at the library just as the library's computers went down, and I doubt Hild reads as quickly as Chinese BL.

I walk even when it rains because my wonted sedentary life will barely get me a hundred steps. Today was sun and dry and brilliantly yellow, so I didn't have to deal with the leaf mat that sticks to the walker's wheels and requires carrying a water bottle and a cloth to remove them periodically. Can only conclude that I never went out walking in the days before my operation, or not in the rain, because I don't recall having this problem at all two years ago and now it's a chronic one, spring and fall. Of course, what I did get today was a dry leaf secreting itself invisibly in the casing and driving me mad with its rustling. Rain returns tomorrow,  of course, and temps fall to normal or below. Got a last laundry on the line- shall rely on the furnace hereafter- and filled a garden waste bag with leaves from the front yard trees. Elbows and back screamed at me for doing so. I hope tomorrow's acupuncture will ease the former at any rate. And then I can go back to sleeping in in the mornings. I have no objection to waking at 9:15 but I hate getting up then, and people *will* give me 1 p.m appointments that obviate against sleeping in till 11:30.

And may I say how very very much I hate those paper garden waste bags? They're too deep to reach into to unfold the bottom quarter but if you don't they fall over and fall down and generally induce screaming rage in me. I swear I'm going to start cutting the top foot off just to ease the frustration.

Seen today: two guys tipping over one of the huge recycle bins (a good 1.5 metres in height) so the idiot raccoon that had somehow got itself inside it could get itself out. Also two hopping insects, a bit small and dull to be grasshoppers, disporting themselves amongst the fallen leaves.

Let me say to have it said, I hate  waiting for people to call me back. I never did like it but in my current socially feral state, the thought of the phone suddenly ringing when I'm not prepared gives me the cold grues. I hope my doctor is on vacation, and I bet she is because it went immediately to voice mail. Don't care if my hernia is bulging (and anyway, half of that is fat because that's where those twenty pounds went on.) I don't want her calling me.

Anyway. Finished The Magician's Daughter which was excellent reading, and am now dithering between Raising Steam, which I have read once only and now I see why, and The Shepherd's Crown, which is good at the beginning but one must stop at the right place, and you don't know the right place u til you've passed it. So instead I'm time travelling via Peter Hunter Blair's Anglo-Saxon England, bought half a century ago in uni and now out of date.

But it's still essence of '72, the Brit.Mus and Sutton Hoo, Widsith and The Wanderer, even if also dry as dust. No matter. On he goes about the Icknield Way and off I go to google and the ancient and heavy god is it heavy out of date atlas, that gives me a detailed map of England so I can  find where the Chilterns are, and Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire, and the fens and Hadrian's wall, all the bitsy pieces of English geography that I never got straight because lord there's so *much* of it. Amazes me that I can keep Japanese prefectures straighter than English counties. But that's probably because I don't have +/- 65 years of literary and historical associations with Tottori or Yamanashi. Whereas I saw  Shakespeare's history plays, Richard and the first three Henrys, at an impressionable age, so the names are familiar (oh saucy Worcestershire!) even if I haven't a clue where they are. I mean, from the looks of it, they're now mostly in the sprawl that is London. There's a reason I never had a mental image of the Home Counties, which are probably almost as depressing as Saitama and Kanagawa, the slop over of Tokyo. But still, but still: I wish I could go back once more and doubt I ever will.

July is a nothing month and nothing much happened in it. I did reread the whole of the Witches arc, bar the first and last. The first day of August continued the do-nothing streak,  bar a massage and finishing Hogfather. Lower back still hurts. Am seeing a physio on Saturday, the one NND says cured his lower back pain, so I may hope for some improvement.

'Many people confuse Leonora Carrington with Dora Carrington'. Including me, wondering why a fringe Bloomsburyite was setting a novel in a Spanish-speaking country. That sorted, I still sent The Ear Trumpet back to the library unfinished ('One person is waiting') because this wasn't the kind of old woman I wanted to be reading. So back to the witches I went. 

I'd forgotten that Greebo gets humanized in three of the books, not one, though July brain being as it is I've already forgotten what the second occurrence was. Somewhere in Lords and Ladies, I assume. But also- and I don't know if this is July brain or that vanishing texts thing-- my recollection of the end of Maskerade is of Agnes walking back to Lancre while Granny and Nanny ride in the coach and make unkind remarks about her size. I wasn't looking forward to that bit and was simultaneously relieved and puzzled when nothing of the sort happened.

One must move to move but moving hurts, so meanwhile the house gets messier and messier. Thus I've started five minute clean-ups. To date I've managed to scrape almost all the hard water and soap scum buildup from the bathroom sink, using a kind of pumice stone intended for toilets, actually. There are products to remove lime and soap buildup but they smell to high heaven and almost certainly rot the lungs, and I'm not using them in this weather. Yesterday I finally cleaned behind the toilet, using a specially bought long handled swifter duster to reach there, and regretted it immediately because it had the Febreeze stink to it. Had to wet it anyway, because bathroom dust mingles with steam to form a coating, so the smell was slightly ameliorated. But anyway, it's clean for the moment. And today I washed down my bedroom table, much the worse for eighteen months worth of eating breakfast there,  and furniture polished it, including the rings from stuff that was dry, really, when I put them down.  I fancy it's past saving but no matter. It came from a yard sale 25 years ago and more, and I didn't buy it for its looks.

And I finally hung up the sweater that was draped over a living room chair for months. That's not not wanting to move but a much more basic resistance that I still haven't got a handle on.

The lindens have gone to town with their seedlings, which are not only profuse but sticky, so that the wheels of my walker- already pitted by two years of contact with Toronto sidewalks- become immovably gunked up with them whenever I go out. Also it appears that at some point I walked over a patch of black rubbery stuff that, unlke the seedlings, can't be washed off with lots of water and an abrasive cloth. Ah well. It's too hot to be walking outside anyway. Though it's a nice dry heat like August in Tokyo and otherwise I would.

Finished Carpe Jugulum. One shouldn't use Granny as a role model but there are very few admirable old women in genial literature around, so one takes what one can. Because otherwise you've got achy old women in reality and I have enough of that in my own reality, thank you. 

Couldn't sleep last night so thought I'd start a boring book and there was Spring Snow on the bookshelf beside the bed. Oh dear oh dear. We have a Japanese Bao Yu here, one of whom was quite sufficient. Also life is too short to read Mishima but it's July, a month to be got through however one can.

Mind, July also brings government goodies in the form of sales tax rebates and grocery rebates and such. I can't reconcile the dizzying sum depisited into my account with the sum the gov't says people in my income bracket get, but I'll take it.

Oh dear, all Pratchett's unwritten novels as listed in Wilkins' biography:

Running Water with Moist as Bazalgette
-- I'd rather have this than Raising Steam

Raising Taxes with Moist appointed to make people happy to pay their taxes
-- a clear imossibility, even for Moist

What Dodger Did Next
Up School!
-- "where Susan becomes headmistress of Quirm College for Young Ladies"
Clang!
-- "a story of revolution... with campanology as the main medium of communication from place to place"
The Feeney
--"a whodunnit starring Constable Feeney... and set among goblins"

I know he wanted his hard drive smashed but I'd so love to read the Notes Toward.

(I keep wishing that there's a backup floating around the cloud somewhere, or maybe just a forgotten thumb drive.)

Time goes flexible/ wonky in winter, especially when winter comprises three seasons in four weeks. It seems an age since I went any farther than the two supermarkets and is probably less than three weeks, unless I've forgotten something which I probably have. Anyway, made it to the library and got Pratchett's biography, then had bulgogi at one of my two Japanese-Korean restaurants (the other is closed on Mondays) and came home. Body is the better for moving but is still twitchy about walking. My exercises are now all about quad strengthening and quad stretching because something is definitely going on with them. Massage tomorrow anyway.

I finished the last of the Timothy Herring books and just as well. It's unpleasant seeing someone in the 60s being miffed because he suspects his handyman of being insolent. Timothy don't half fancy himself. Also goes about tipping the lower classes for talking to him, which this North American finds insulting. Especially when the insolent handyman actually tugs his forelock, and not ironically either.

Anyway, Wilkins and Sir Pterry are a breath of fresh air after that. Though for some reason I stopped and read Babette's Feast in the middle of it, and Dinesen has cast an odd shadow on the day in consequence. Never realized before how basically unheimlich Dinesen is.

I was never one for webcomics but I seem to have fallen for Questionable Content. Only I just realized that its large cast of characters and their complicated relationships- that I still haven't got straight onaccounta coming in at ep 200 or whatever-- feels exactly the same as the entries I read on my FFL or on various people's networks. Both are pixels on a screen involving people I (mostly) don't know, unless I've been reading them long enough to have a rough idea of who they are. Sometimes I'm reminded of that Jemisin story where people can only email each other but when the protag meets an actual person (I forget how) she disappears from the online universe. My universe has been virtually all-virtual for two and a half years now and I think it's messing with my thinking.

Meanwhile I have Michael Innes' first, Death at the President's Lodging, which I would never have suspected was about a university because I didn't think English universities *had* presidents. I wonder if Pratchett had this in mind when he wrote the early Unseen University where professors advance through murder. Even if not, it's unpleasantly reminiscent of the university gossip that reached even us undergrads back in the day: departmental feuds both inter and intra, back-biting and infighting and kimochi warui-ness all round. I could never have been an academic- too lazy, for one thing- but I begin to see in retrospect what was wrong with all my acquaintances who were or wanted to be. They might have been decent enough people to start with-- back in high school, maybe-- but departmental politics warped them very early on.

So I shall persevere with this, but on the whole I prefer Appleby in a country house setting.

I'm accustomed to the happy serendip of finding change in the pockets of a fall jacket or winter coat. Finding a pair of glasses in a summer hapi coat is a new one by me. Since I regularly and still misplace my reading glasses, I can't pinpoint exactly which 'what on earth did I do with my (backpack/ kitchen/ living room) glasses?' this pair is, but glad to have them anyway.

Allergies still bite so took a sip of codeine cough syrup. Doing this on Wednesday led to happy druggy experience. Today was just mild malaise.

Went to library yesterday to pick up two holds. Got my two holds, both Ann Grangers. Thought "wasn't there supposed to be a Pratchett waiting for me?" Yes, there was, and it's still there, but my mind was fixated on the number two. Also is supposed to rain this afternoon so won't be getting it before Monday. No matter: I have two Ann Grangers to read.

All respect to John Dickson Carr but truly I don't find it 'perfectly simple' to take a doorknob off, attach a string to the shaft inside so you can loosen the other knob at will and thus reveal an inch wide opening in the plate through which to shoot your victim with a crossbow. I don't think this MO would occur to anybody, let alone a middle-aged spinster in the 1930s who'd never used a crossbow in her life, or even taken a doorknob apart to see how it works.

Wretched night last night. Took an antihistamine because I was sneezing in yesterday's unseasonable temperatures. Took the regular muscle relaxant for low back pain. Made me wait till midnight, yawning, to avoid 6 a.m. wakings. Warmed my beanbags and crept into my cozy duvet nest and Did. Not. Sleep. Could not sleep. Turned on light after two hours of this, read some more of InterestingTimes, turned off light, lay down. Know I slept some because I rolled out of a dream into blank-eyed wakefulness at 5 and finally got up at 6 anyway.

Went to get staples out. Incision started bleeding with the first three or four. Apparently the edges aren't lined up properly, though there's stitches underneath keeping things together. Sight is not as grisly as ohh that hernia repair back in '04 but knee is soggy swollen and he kept poking it. Anyway, he left a bunch of staples in and said come back in a few days, which shall do. Then they put sterile sticky tape over each staple and gauze pads over those and paper tape over those, which is fine but that paper surgical tape doesn't stick very well and I know it will come off as soon as I start doing my exercises. Luckily I have a plethora of knee braces (and how odd not to be wearing them 24/7 as I have for the last however many years) so one of them is now holding everything in place.

But the rest of the day was a washout, of course. Cold front coming through with high winds meant every joint ached, and in spite of plunging temps I'm still sneezing. Napped in the early evening and shall hope for sweet deep sleep tonight.