Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
Book sixteen of 2019: Slan, by A.E. van Vogt. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1941 Retro Hugo Best Novel 📚
Definitely dated, esp. regarding views of women, odd extrapolation of tech (a very 40s world, but with ray guns & antigravity ships), but I’ve read far worse from this era. Fans are slans! 😏
Book fifteen of 2019: The Book of Merlyn, by T.H. White. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚
A curious coda to TOaFK, mostly serving as an argument against humankind’s warlike tendencies. Not critical to finish Arthur’s story, IMHO.
Book fourteen of 2019: Assignment: Eternity, by Greg Cox. ⭐️⭐️ 📚
An average Trek romp, marred by the author trying too hard to drop “clever” references to other Trek and pop culture events, and (worse) using a PNW indigenous people’s name for the name of a planet (Duwamish).
Ventured out from the homestead to make the trek over ice and snow to the local mercantile for provisions. Though the skies were clear, ‘twas still bitterly cold, as the winter sun brought no warmth. The footing was treacherous, but no spills were taken; scavengers were seen, but we gave them a wide berth. Some supply runs had made it through, so we were able to procure most of what we had hoped for. Loaded our purchases onto our backs, safely made the journey home, and have settled back in to warm ourselves by the fire once more.
(Walked down the road to Fred Meyer on a pretty day. Saw a few crows. The store shelves were only decimated (in the proper sense), but not entirely wiped out anymore, and what we bought easily fit into our lightweight, pocketable IKEA backpacks. Back home, the fake electric fireplace is on, and warm drinks will likely be made soon.)
Book thirteen of 2019: 84K, by Claire North. #PKDickAward nominee. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Set in a distressingly plausible near-future dystopic Britain, the unrelenting dreariness was difficult for me. As with post-apocalyptic fiction, I’m not a big fan; I prefer more hope in my futurism.
Seattle Snowpocalypse 2019 Saturday morning update: Went out for a short walk to enjoy the scenery and scoff at the people driving too fast for conditions. That’s enough outside for us for a while!
Seattle Snowpocalypse 2019 status check, Friday afternoon.
Survived my first experience with pre-*pocalypse shopping last night. The shopping itself wasn’t actually all that bad – we knew what we were getting into, and apparently so did most other people; it was definitely unusually busy, but people weren’t being unusually obnoxious – and it was amusing to see the many empty shelves where the store had been cleared out. It did take us, quite literally, an hour of standing in the checkout line before we made it to the register, but even that was made a little more entertaining by watching new shoppers’ eyes go wide as they walked in the doors and saw the lines.
End result: we’re prepped and ready to not leave the house for the foreseeable future (well, Prairie teaches this morning, but should be home by noon before the snow gets serious).
Stay safe and warm, everyone!
The Seattle area got a good dump of snow last night! Here’s what we woke up to in Renton.
Of course, I work from home, so no snow day for me….
As seen on Capitol Hill in Seattle on Friday Night, not far from the Mercury:
the world gets hard to live in
with an open spirit.
But risk is the spice of life.Be legendary.