Blog Without A Name

The sun rose today.  The sky was blue.  It didn’t rain.

It was glorious.

Steve and I went desk-chair shopping, which meant sitting in rather a lot of desk chairs at the local office store.  I really liked the Lazy-Boy executive chair.  If I’d looking for a chair to nap it, I’d’ve snapped it up in a heartbeat.  Sadly, I occasionally fall asleep in the not-very-comfy chair I already employ, so — the Lazy-Boy got voted off the island.

Found a Raynor Nefil Smart Motion Managers mesh chair, which was Highly Adjustable, and comfy-enough.  It was expensive and ugly, but it would probably do the trick.  I emailed its information to myself and we continued test-chairing.

After dismissing several more, both Steve and I found that we both independently liked the Tempur-pedic 8000 task chair — more comfy than the mesh chair, not as comfy as the Lazy-Boy, with all of the adjustments available to the mesh chair — and somewhat less expensive.  Also, while A Thing of Beauty, still a nice-enough looking piece of furniture.

Another email sent to myself, some minor office supply shopping taken care of, and out we went into the day — which, as I have mentioned WAS NOT RAINY — this time bound for Belanger’s Drive-Through in Downtown Fairfield, where Steve and I split a warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream while sitting at a picnic bench in the sun.

Ah.

Eventually, we came home, as one must, to a late dinner, and, having research chairs, I now believe that I’ll read somebody else’s book for a little while.

Hope y’all had an enjoyable and slightly lazy Saturday.

Before I ask the question, I shall Issue a Warning.  To wit:

BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THE QUESTION, THE ANSWERS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.  IF YOU OBJECT TO SPOILERS, DON’T READ THE ANSWERS!

This is the only Warning that will be issued.  Thank you for your attention.

Off in Another Part of the Internet, someone has observed that the Carousel books are to Urban Fantasy as Cozy Mysteries are to Hardboiled Detective.  They further wonder if there is a subgenre of Cozy Fantasy, which I believe there is not, though I’m willing be proved wrong.

Most importantly, however, is the request for More Like This from other authors — which is to say, now that he has finished the Carousel books he would like to read more books like them — and asks for titles.

Now, I’m derned if I know of anything just exactly like the Carousel books — I was trying for a Certain Deliberate Effect, and I think I pretty much hit it (in case there was any doubt, I’m rather proud of the Carousel books).  I could offer a list of anti-Carousel books, by which I mean those books that the Carousel books were written to. . .refute.  But, with the exception of maybe deLint, sorta-sometimes, I’m coming up blank on the “if-you-liked-this-then-you’ll-like-that.”

So! for those who have read at least two of the Carousel books (those being, in order of publication and event: Carousel Tides, Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas) — can you help a fellow reader out with authors/titles/subgenres?

Thanks!

. . .or, as we say around here, Winter is coming.

Not even six o’clock and it’s already getting dark.  Well, at least we went out and played in the sunshine.  Took a ride in the brisk and breezy autumn day, through China, and Windsor, and so to Augusta — as one does — where we took a break at Barnes and Noble, and came home with — Anyone care to hazard a guess?

. . .

You guys are too good.

Yeah, we came home with books, including Anne Leckie’s second book, Ancillary Sword; Paragon Walk, Anne Perry; Why Mermaids Sing, CS Harris; Third Circle, Amanda Quick.  So, thank ghod, I won’t run out of anything to read soon.

*cough*

We stopped for ice cream on the way home from the bookstore, and so we were sitting to the mid-day meal rather later than usual.  We had just finished up when we heard — and felt! — a sort of THUD-thud.  I looked out the front window (which is accessible to me from my usual seat at the kitchen table) and saw our neighbor’s truck going slllllloooooowwwwly up his drive, dragging a trailer full of Big Freaking Chunks of Wood.

“It’s them going up the drive across the street,” I said to Steve, but Steve was already out on the deck, and he was saying, “That’s not what we heard.”

I got up and went outside to look, and, by golly, this is what we heard, falling out of the trailer:

“Wow,” I said.  “I’m glad it didn’t roll,” and I continued off the deck to the mailbox, because I had some letters to mail.

As I crossed the road, I looked down the street and discovered that, no, there wasn’t a log in the road.

Whereupon I started to laugh.  I was still laughing, bent over, letters in hand, when our next door neighbor — you can see his drive, right where the farthest log is — drove carefully up the road and said to me, “Did you see who lost ’em?”

I nodded and pointed up the drive.

“Him?  Does he know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He must know. . . You think he doesn’t know?”

“I’ll go up and tell him, just in case,” I said.  “Since you’re already driving, maybe you ought to check down the main road to make sure they didn’t lose any more.”

“Oh! Good idea!”

And off he went.

I put my letters in the box, and walked up the neighbor’s drive; and was about half-way to the house when the door opened and out came Himself.

“You lost some logs in the road,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said a little sheepishly, “we just now noticed they was gone and wondered where we lost them.”

“Our other neighbor went out on the road to make sure you didn’t lose any more,” I said.  Himself winced slightly.

“Great,” he said.  “Thanks.”

* * *

In other news, I turned in “The Night Don’t Seem so Lonely,” an Archers Beach short story which will appear on the Baen website in mid-December to whet everybody’s appetite for Carousel Seas.

And, now, I do believe I’ll go do the dishes and then repair to the couch to perhaps finish reading Good Omens.

 

So, the hospital came through with an early check-in time, but then we got to sit around for a couple hours before Steve’s turn came in the outpatient operating room.  We talked with one of the nurses while we were waiting; she professed herself a great reader, though not of science fiction, and was, indeed, able to reel off quite a list of authors who do not write science fiction.  She credited her Kindle with increasing the number of books she was able to read, because of being able to just buy the next book without ever leaving her chair.  And then she said, “No, wait! I did read one science fiction book, and I liked it a lot!  It was called. . .it was called. . .Old Man’s War.  But I don’t remember the author.”

Steve and I were able to help her out, there.

In fact, I did not take the galleys with me, remembering, as I did, and in the nick of time, the accommodations available to waiting family members.  This turned out to be a wise choice, for many reasons, not the least of which is that I really only had about 45 minutes to myself before Steve was back with a clean bill of health.  So, yay! for clean bill of health.

Once the hospital released us, we repaired to Tim Horton’s for a late lunch. Tim Horton’s in Waterville subscribes to FM 107.9 (the MIX, to you), which is a local Waterville station on which Tim’s advertises,  thus this makes Perfect Sense.  The MIX plays oldies.  I mean Really Old Oldies, like, for instance, Gold Dust Woman (to which, yes, I know ALL the words), and so we will ritually blame Tim Horton’s for the title of today’s blog post.  Here’s your link

After lunch, we came home (as he was coming out from under the anaesthesia, Steve insisted several times that the doctor was supposed to have given me a note to go to the ocean.  Alas, the doctor fell down on this important detail, so we went home.), whereupon Steve went to bed, and so to sleep.  The cats thought this was a Splendid! Idea! so they went to sleep too, which left me to ply my craft in wakeful solitude.  There are about 100 pages left of galley-reading left.  Can she finish in time to get the corrected pages into overnight FedEx by four p.m. Friday?  Tune in tomorrow for the answer to this, and other, thrilling questions. . .

In the meantime, it’s been a long, and sporadically stressful, day.  I’m very tired, but realize that I need to eat something, though I’ve no idea what.

So, let me get off of the intertubes and  go solve that interesting problem before I fall asleep with my face in the keyboard.

Everybody stay safe.