Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

Year 50 Day 160

by

Me standing at the kitchen sink and doing dishes.

Day 160: I’m not much of a food-oriented person, and so have little in the way of cooking skills (though I can manage a pretty darn good take-out pizza or Kraft Mac-N-Cheese). So I make up for my limited usefulness in dinner prep by being responsible for the cleanup. It’s better than not bothering with the kitchen at all!

Year 50 Day 159

by

Me, with a slight smile, lit entirely in purple.

Day 159: Quite happily, I’m feeling much better today. Not quite back up to 100%, but improvements have most definitely been made. So I’m not nearly as blue as it may appear (though it was fun to play with the lights in my home office window).

Year 50 Day 157

by

Me outside in front of the Highline College library building, with a group of about 30 people visible behind me standing around and chatting with each other.

Day 157: Had our morning interrupted by a fire alarm! Turns out it was an unannounced drill, so no real danger or anything, but it was definitely an unexpected minor adventure.

📚 Queen Wallis by C.J. Carey

by

55/2023 – ⭐⭐⭐

A sequel to Widowland, one of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award-nominated books, set in an alternate-history UK where Germany won WWII, and the UK is now an allied protectorate of Germany, under the nominal reign of Queen Wallace Simpson, entirely reduced to a figurehead. Following the events of Widowland, and in anticipation of the first diplomatic visit from the United States in years, England is under even tighter control. The importance of literature and poetry are important threads again, and the book does a good job of continuing the story after the climax of Widowland, picking up threads and quite believably ratcheting up the tension. I’ll definitely be interested to see if the series continues on.

Me holding Queen Wallis

Year 50 Day 155

by

Me on our back porch, with lots of small orange lights strung across like a web.

Day 155: The other bit of lights we put up are these orange strings all across our back porch. Mostly only visible to us, but can just be glimpsed from the street if someone glances over at just the right time as they drive by.

Year 50 Day 153

by

Me in front of our house with the halloween lights I put up yesterday glowing. There are purple and orange strings along one side, and glowing green, orange, and purple spiders along another.

Day 153: Since yesterday’s shot of me putting up our Halloween lights was taken during the day, I figured one taken after sundown tonight to show them lit up was in order. Much more impressive this way!