16 October 2004

Oh, that was two days, was it? This relaxation thing. Very dangerous.

Thursday was a day entirely off. The closest thing to errands was filling the car with gas so I could run around. Got to see DDB and later Lydy, Pamela, and Eric. And three different Very Nice Kitties, but not at such proximity/duration to cause major allergy problems. Yesterday I had lunch with Ceej and wandered a bit and watched a movie. Not entirely a day off, but I had extremely little energy and just did what I could and let the rest go for awhile. I feel like I am Not Getting Sick, which takes much more energy than simply not getting sick. Still, either is preferable to getting sick.

Yesterday I wore a sweater. It wasn't a cardigan, either. It was the kind of sweater you put on when the high is not going to be that high, and the low is going to be lowish, and you are in sweaterland for the duration.

I love fall.

I have a partiality to the word "fall," I'm afraid. I can use "autumnal" with some ease, but when it comes to the noun form, it's "fall" for me. Not sure why. Just works that way.

I was disappointed in Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe. The conceit did not seem like nearly enough to carry a whole novel, and none of the other elements was particularly outstanding, either. I didn't connect with the characters, the setting did not seem particularly interesting to me, the plot did not engage me, the theme was overstated in some places and underdeveloped in others...yeah. That pretty much covers it. I was particularly sad because I'd enjoyed Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and I don't feel like I'm excited by enough science fiction these days, in its less inclusive sense, distinct from fantasy. Ah well. Timprov reminds me that many of the people whose books we like had disappointing early novels somewhere along the way.

I am not, however, disappointed in Rosemary Kirstein's The Language of Power. So far. I'm a little disappointed in Stella for not lending me the next book along with all the others, and I know she's going to give me some excuse about it not being out yet. Some people's friends.

I have so much to cook and bake. I'm in one of those stages where I keep coming up with more stuff I really ought to do, and it feeds on itself: get the buttermilk for the soup and then there's buttermilk in the fridge that needs to be used up in oatmeal pancakes, maybe a giant batch to be frozen and nuked at will all winter. The last of the season's peppers need to be dealt with, and I think some of them should go into black bean soup, and then there's the matter of partitioning the leftovers into soup-to-eat, soup-to-freeze, soup-to-boil-down (black bean soup makes excellent enchilada filling when boiled down with some additional items -- mushrooms, for example, and tomatoes and red bell peppers). And there should be hotdish, because it's hotdish season, and breads because it's time and we have the stuff, and...and. And. And all of a sudden the kitchen is a very scary, very busy place. But with good results, I suppose.

I'm going to fetch Mark and go out for a nice supper date with him on the way back from the airport. Okay, so in this case "on the way" means "directly out of the way," but don't get picky with me.