It is December 1st! It is ON, bitches!

Somebody's gotta eat these leftovers. And since I'm the only one here, I guess I have to throw myself on this last piece of pumpkin pie ...

And this stuffing is good, nuked for four minutes after being splashed with the stock with which it was made.

There was an orange cat outside, maowing, clearly very unhappy to be outside. He came to my patio and looked through the glass door, and I got the distinct impression that he was looking for his people. The family across from us have an orange cat, I've seen it in their window, but they weren't home when I went to see if he was theirs. He didn't run from me, but he also made it clear that I was not who he was looking for. And I wasn't sure he belonged across the way. I thought, "Man, maybe I am wrong. If he belonged literally fifteen feet away, wouldn't he be over there maowing? Surely his nose would tell him if he were that close?" What if I took him inside and his real owners came looking for him and couldn't find him because he was inside my apartment? He showed no inclination to leave the area, just sat on the walkway outside my apartment, maowing. I was worried. I was thinking if it got dark and he was still sitting there, I was gonna have to bring him inside for sure.

Finally, I saw some movement across the way, and went back over there. Two pre-teen boys opened the door, and I asked if they were missing an orange cat. Turns out they have three cats, and a quick headcount revealed that they were indeed short one feline family member. I pointed to my guest, who had relocated to under a bush near my front door. The boys galloped over there, and pretty soon I heard cries of "Max! Max!" And then, "Thanks, lady!"

Whew, I am relieved.

My new houseguest is in my bathroom right now, and, despite all the evidence that someone else is up, i.e. lights on, noises emanating from the kitchen/living room area, is peeing with the door open.

What in blue blazes???

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased. - Katharine Hepburn

I bought a $27 custom matte and a $15 frame for a $4 print.

I really do like it, though. And I think it's going to look just swell in the bedroom.

Tyler Florence is making Spanish tapas. Every single thing on this episode looks tastier than Ryan Reynolds with his shirt off. Good Lord.

Have made the candy corn popcorn balls and the Devil's Food cupcakes, and what I feel is a rather righteous Halloween Mix CD. Still have to caramel the apples, make frosting, decorate the tombstone cookies with witticisms such as "I.D. Kumpoz," frost the cupcakes, make two casseroles, (Pumpkin Ziti with Italian Sausage, and Eggplant Parmesan), and carve a pumpkin.

And I might need to go to the store. Again. And I hope to get a shower somewhere in all this.

If this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for five children and three adults, that's because it is.

No problem, right?

*dies*

A friend who is aware of my hobby of looking at wedding pictures online, asked me to use my Fu and help her come up with design ideas for her sister's wedding. To think that this utterly worthless time-wasting practice has actually yielded something useful to someone ... Wow!

( Read more... )31. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch - RSURS is the sequel to his debut novel The Lies Of Locke Lamora, which was a critical success. His second book does "prove that Lynch is the real deal," as the jacket states. The first book was Ocean's Eleven (with more inventive cussing and a lot more blood), set in an Alternate Universe Renaissance Venice. That would make this book Ocean's Twelve. Only it's better than that, because there are PIRATES! Everything's better with pirates. Female pirates, even, which get him an extra-big, fat gold star from me. You already know if you like this kind of thing, and if you even suspect that you do, you're really going to like Scott Lynch, because he's very, very good at it.

I have become a fan of Sanctuary on the SyFy channel. The production values are about what one would expect, similar to Stargate SG-1. The thing that surprised me, and made me a fan, is the writing. Strong, smart female characters and wise-cracking technogeeks are the norm. Who wouldn't enjoy a show where Nicola Tesla is a smart-ass vampire as well as a genius inventor?

As usual, Ursula Vernon articulates an opinion far more eloquently than I ever could:

I accidentally clicked into a discussion of spanking bans, which I read with vague astonishment, consisting as it did of people who thought it was a horrible abuse and people who thought it was totally normal and people who took the moderate position that there's a vast difference between a serious beating and a swat on the butt and all things are a matter of individual circumstance and people hating on the anti-child contingent, who hadn't actually put on an appearance, but presumably were somewhere in a dark basement putting out pro-child-cannibalism propaganda on an ancient hand-cranked mimeograph and people who came out okay and people who came out not at all okay and people who cannot even see okay from where they are sitting, for reasons that one sneakingly suspects have very little to do with spanking or its lack.

Some people are so far over the edge that you could see the curvature of the earth reflected in their eyes.

The problem is that when I walk into this sort of thing, I Cannot Look Away, but I start to feel like I've wandered into some horrible internet house of mirrors, and if I grab the wrong doorknob, it'll pitch me headlong into a discussion of breastfeeding and childhood anti-vaxxers and I'll never get out and my boyfriend will find me in the morning, crouched under the desk, gibbering, with a gnawed stump where my mouse hand used to be and "YOG-SOTHOTH USES COMMERCIAL FORMULA" scrawled on the wall in my own blood.

(Seriously, something about breastfeeding seems to bring out the serious crazy, and I've never figured out why, nor wished to delve into the subject deeply enough to find out. I'm sure it's a good idea if you can do it, undoubtedly there are health benefits, but then you get people screaming that if you don't breastfeed until college, you're an unfit parent, and that using formula is equivalent to child abuse, and you find yourself staring into space wondering idily how the species manages to reproduce at all and whether people had this problem in the days with mammoths.)

Actually, I wonder about the mammoth thing a lot. The species went on for thousands of years with everybody just going on as best they could--humans, not mammoths, although I suppose the mammoths were also probably going along as best they could, mammoths seem like a creature with a work ethic--and we seem to have done okay. I mean, we died a lot younger, but I don't think that had much to do with spanking, and a lot more to do with tooth decay and getting stepped on by mammoths. It seems to me that no matter how you raise people--within certain ranges, obviously--people just come out like people. The history of the world is people coming out like people. Even in cultures where people do Very Very Weird Things by our standards, they come out astonishingly people-like, which either means that humans can get used to anything or that we're all going to be screwed up by SOMETHING, and we should just work on avoiding the big things like wars and sex slavery and lead poisoning.

I wonder about the mammoth thing a lot, too.

The first thing I do when I wake up is make the bed, then I go around and open the blinds and a few windows (because it's been a nice temperature lately, can't do it much in the summer or the winter), and these days, start a cup of tea.

So, I woke up and my mom wasn't here. She must have left with Jimmy this morning. That was kind of a nice thing in and of itself, having a morning to myself. And then I noticed it was raining. Still opened a few windows, because it's not cold at all. Just slippers-and-a-cup-of-tea weather.

What a lovely morning. Gives me that feeling like the rest of the day is just a pleasure waiting to unfold.

"There are very few things in life that cannot be solved with white paint, a bullet, or an apology." -- Ursula Vernon

Seeing as I seem to have contracted the same creeping yuck which is infecting half of my friends' list, I would have been happy with a much simpler dinner: tea and toast, perhaps, or the last of the fruit salad I made to go with the leftover chicken casserole at lunch. But the kids are here, and so I breaded some chicken, made instant mash and heated up some canned green beans. It wasn't my finest culinary moment by far, but wouldn't you know, they ate it like it was the last food they would see for a month.

Maybe I'll have the fruit salad for dessert. Jimmy ate it.

Project Runway = TRAVESTY. What a miscarriage of fashion justice.

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27. Dead In Dallas by Charlaine Harris
28. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

The kids are going home tonight. As much as I love the Veggie Tales, I am content not to hear any of their Silly Songs again for two weeks. (At least). And I could use a little decompression time. Time to watch all the "grown up" shows I have saved on my DVR, time to repair the destruction to the apartment, time to have a glass of wine (or two), to swim in the pool without anyone deliberately splashing me in the eyes, for peace and quiet, and possibly, maybe, to sleep in. Not having to do more than a couple of loads of laundry per day will also be most welcome. And the DISHES. Oy.

At the moment, Selah is using our dominoes as building blocks, a purpose for which they were not designed and are certainly less than ideal. She's persistent, though. This is fun to watch.

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23. Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs - Sequel to Moon Called. The continuing adventures of Mercy Thompson, VW mechanic and coyote shape-shifter. She's not the only thing out there with supernatural powers. The thrust of this story is that there's something out there capable of killing even the oldest, strongest Faerie creatures, which has the local reservation, (in this world, most Faerie creatures live on a reservation), in a state of understandable concern. Mercy gets involved because one of her friends, a Faerie creature himself, is accused of the crime. And the uncommon nature of her gift means that she can go undetected by many who think they know all about the things that go bump in the night. Her complicated association with the local pack of werewolves, and her friendship with other supernatural creatures, (including the inevitable vampires), provide an backdrop to the unfolding tale. Mercy is yet another supernatural heroine who bloodymindedly insists on maintaining her independence (no matter how suicidal the circumstances), which of course commands interest and, frequently, admiration from almost every power-player she encounters. I may tire of it soon, as I inevitably do, but for now there are enough interesting secondary characters (Warren the gay cowboy werewolf, anyone?) to balance the heroine's shortcomings.

23. Set The Dark On Fire by Jill Sorenson - a new novel by my romantic suspense novel-writing friend. I still can't get over the fact that I'm reading something written by someone I went to high school with. My sister said she didn't find this one was as exciting as Jill's earlier novels, (perhaps because the sex is not so exotic as in previous books), but I have really enjoyed seeing how her writing is evolving and advancing. She clearly did a good amount of research for this one, and it shows in the strong sense of place. I can see how she's growing in plot and characterization from book to book.

24. Rough Weather by Robert B. Parker - a Spenser novel. It lives up to his normally high standard of quality. Perhaps not one of the classics in my estimation, but a strong showing. However, I saw the "twist" coming a long way off. That may be because it was transparent, or maybe it's just that I've read a lot of Spenser novels.

25. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson - Sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Once again, the author is dealing with violence against women. There is nothing sensational in how the violence is depicted in either novel. When I read the first book, I wondered if this was deliberate on the part of the author or if it was a function of the Swedishness of the author or perhaps of the translation. Now I feel confident that it was deliberate: he's avoided pandering to anyone's depravity or titillating his audience with lurid, sexualized imagery. And I like that. I like it a lot. TGWPWF also gets off to a quicker start, and I found the pacing more typical of a suspense novel. Unlike the first book, which was very atmospheric, but almost all the action was at the end. TGWPWF certainly confirms all the praise that Larsson received when the first book was released. I like the progression of the characters, and I very much look forward to the third and final book in the series.

26. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris - Yes, I've been watching True Blood, and I was curious to see how the series diverges from the books. So far, I like the characterization in the books slightly better than the series, because Sookie, the lead, isn't quite such a mindless Pollyanna. She acknowledges, at least to herself, the less-than-perfect aspects of having a vampire boyfriend. It's the "examined" version of Sookie, and I find her a more well-rounded character in the books. The absence of Tara is also a bonus.