1. It did rain a little this morning, but just some sprinkling. I was worried it would have rained overnight and even if it wasn't raining when I wanted to take my morning walk, the pavement would be slick (the tread on my shoes is gone and I slip easily), but everything was dry. It sprinkled a little while I was out walking, and I actually did fall once when I was nearly back home, but it wasn't too bad, and it's been clear the rest of the day (but also still overcast and pleasant temps).

2. I stopped at Sidecar this morning to try their new banana cream pie donut.



It was pretty tasty, but I don't think I need to get it again. I was happy to see I had a free donut to redeem when I checked the app, so I was able to take advantage of that.

3. Ollie!

Flirting 1816 style, near Dolgellau: "After breakfast we walked round the grounds, and through a rural little wood to a beautiful waterfall with which we were highly delighted, Jane the more so as we had a little scrambling which afforded her an opportunity of uttering some short and long screams and falling into Robert's arms."
Robert's older brother was named Richard Richards and was known locally as Double Dick. :D

USian history, such as it is: "London has hosted international football for 19 incredible years", said Henry Hodgson, general manager, NFL UK & Ireland.
In reality, London has hosted "international football" ever since the English and Scots invented it in the 1870s, but I accept there's only been USian can't-tell-their-arses-from-their-elbows "football" regularly in London for a mere 19 years. I quite enjoy watching the American game as it's clearly designed to be a spectator sport (for the benefit of attracting advertising sponsorship), while I prefer to participate in sport that's more fun to actually play. ;-P

Kiss-us interruptus in a North Wales inn, 1855: "The heir [to the Penrhyn slate quarry fortune] ... I very unwittingly came upon as he was kissing the maid of the hotel upon the top of the stairs ...". I hope the maid didn't mind.

Current reading: "We drift through life. We impose our hopes and desires on others, hopes and desires of which they are often unaware, or care not to reciprocate, or cannot reciprocate in the way we would wish. And then we die. Alone. But the journey to that ultimate destination can be beautiful, full of weird sights and strange creatures. And we should not wish it to be any other way."

On a train: a passenger still had the sat nav active on her mobile so when she unlocked her phone the train was repeatedly instructed to turn left down [somewhere] hill. :D

1. The weather was so nice today! Not perfect. It definitely could have been way less muggy. But it was overcast and high 70s and had a tiny bit of sprinkles but not enough rain to interfere with anything. And last night I slept with the blankets on for the first time in over a month.

2. We had a really nice morning at Disneyland. Lot of people taking advantage of the nice day after all that heat and before the forecast rain coming up, but it wasn't so crowded that it made things unpleasant.

3. Jasper! I love his little upside down face.

I suspected today might be a busy day at Disneyland since we are just coming out of a weeklong heatwave of 100+ temps in Anaheim and then starting tomorrow there's supposed to be several days of possible rain, so today is a good time to go. And sure enough, while it wasn't the busiest we've ever seen, it was definitely busier than it has been the last few times we've been.

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1. I enjoyed checking out Halloween Horror Night last night, but it definitely confirmed that this sort of thing is not really for me, so I'm glad I got the ticket for free with my annual pass and didn't pay for it.

2. The weather is finally cooling off for real. The high was 76 today and the same goes for tomorrow. Even Anaheim is only supposed to get up to 82 (and we should be home before the high hits down there). We're supposed to get some rain over the next few days, so I hope we do but that it is only during times that are not inconvenient for me!

3. Such a sweet Chloe face!

I have never been particularly interested in the sort of haunted house where you walk through and get jump scared by a bunch of randos, so things like Knott's Scary Farm and Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights don't really appeal, but as our Universal annual passes come with a free HHN ticket, I decided to check it out just to see what it's like. And I'm glad I did, but it's not something I feel like I ever need to do again.

Since traffic would get worse the later I went, I decided to go in the afternoon and use my AP to get in before the event (which officially starts at 7pm) and just get some food or do some rides before that.

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Pedro Martín, Mexikid Dreams (2026)

Autobiographical graphic novel about a Mexican-American kid growing up in a strawberry sharecropping family in 1970s California. Pedro is a delight, an inveterate daydreamer who nevertheless manages to be a keen observer of the world around him (when he does take notice of it), who has never once managed to track on a single earnest lecture given to him by an adult ever.

(Adult lectures quickly devolve into BLAH BLAH BLAH with the occasional very concerning phrase left in for the reader, and at the end, when the adult asks if Pedro got all that, Pedro always answers with a smile and a thumbs up. This child got nothing of that, is not in the LEAST concerned that he got nothing of that, and even when it becomes clear later that the lecture might have contained RELEVANT, NECESSARY, or even CRITICAL information, Pedro just shrugs: lectures are just one of those inexplicable and incomprehensible adult behaviors that has nothing to do with him. SMILE-AND-THUMBS-UP!)

The story is wide-ranging, covering the day-to-day reality of strawberry picking, Pedro's budding music career as a trombonist, run-ins with Immigration police, and the humor and indignity of being one semi-anonymous child in a crowd of siblings. Pedro is very concerned that he will never escape the strawberry fields, but his father, while demanding that everyone work in the fields to help support the family, is also very supportive of his kids getting out of the fields -- provided that they can come up with a concrete and actionable career plan first! Pedro, whose only ambition in life is to draw superhero comics in front of the TV set, is convinced that he will never come up with a father-approved career plan and thus is doomed to pick strawberries forever...

(Psych! His father does approve the cartooning plan, mostly on the advice of Pedro's older siblings, who assure him that it is possible to make a living drawing pictures. btw, Pedro's dad is a great character: a weirdo with a kooky sense of humor, who sneakily instigates strawberry fights between his children when he feels they need a pick-me-up.)

Sequel to Mexikid, which I haven't read, but now very much want to.


Taras Drokhasko (illus. Marjana Drokhasko), Who Will Make the Snow? (2013 / 2023)

Translated from the Ukranian, fantastical children's picture book about a pair of moles and all their forest friends. Charming story with a lot of neat elements -- grrlpup and I keep referencing incidents from it in casual conversation -- but it failed to hit for me, entirely because I couldn't turn off my realist mental track. Which is 100% a me problem, and 0% a problem with the book.


Randy Cecil, Lucy (2016)

Simple picture book for young children about a street dog who had once been a beloved pet, the girl who feeds it, and her father the talented juggler with a bad case of stage-fright. The story had me on tenterhooks all the way through, in a ships-passing-in-the-night, competing-needs sort of way--

But then happy endings all around, as all three characters come together to become the solutions to each other's problems. I enjoyed this one lots, even as grrlpup and I ruefully agree that the father never will get to see Cairo, Paris, etc.: they have a dog now.

Recently Finished
The Vanished Sister
Finally a new Lady Sherlock book! It's only been a little over two years since the last one but it feels like it's been ages. I did feel like I needed a refresher and wished I'd done a reread (or re-listen, rather, since aside from the first book or two I've done these all as audiobooks) but most of the details did come back to me as the story went on. I enjoyed this and am looking forward to the next book, but I think once the publication date is announced I will definitely plan to go back over the earlier books to refresh my memory.

Last Call at the Nightingale
First in a new to me murder mystery series set in probation era New York. I really liked the author's other series (the Lily Adler mysteries), but this one is so far just okay for me. Sometimes the first book in a series feels a little slower because it's establishing backstory and such, so I'm hoping that further books better. (But even as-is, I will definitely read the rest in the series.)

Punk'n Heads
Graphic novel about a group of young adults who are all roommates and in a band together. Lots of messy relationship stuff. I've read other books by this duo and liked them, but this one was just all right.

¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico
Cute autobiographical graphic novel about the author's summer trip to visit family in Mexico as a teen. I enjoyed it.

"Houkoku" Toaru Mikaiketsu Jiken ni Tsuite vol. 1-2
New mystery manga that feels very similar to the Uketsu books (Strange Pictures, Strange Houses, etc). A reporter follows up on an unsolved case from ten years ago and ends up uncovering an even bigger mystery. I'm enjoying this and looking forward to the next volume.

Letter TK, I really will fill it out this year.

“Maybe we could introduce a character in the Absolute Universe BEFORE we meet them in the main universe?” they said. “Okay,” I said. -- Al Ewing

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I can't say I was particularly excited by an entire series of vampires and X-Men, but honestly? This was pretty good!

Below the cut, worldbuilding and red meat for Scott Summers fans.

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1. I got something in the mail for my mom the other day and told her I'd drop it by sometime this week, so since I've got today off and can take a longer bike ride than I usually do on weekdays, I rode over to her house and was thinking of just dropping it in the mailbox, but saw their screen door was open, so I knocked and called out, but no one answered, so then I was able to feel like I'd given it a good faith effort and dropped it in the mailbox without feeling guilty. Even if she had come to the door, I was planning to just say hi and tell her I was in a hurry and couldn't stay long, but this was even better.

2. I saw another new bakery on instagram the other day and it worked out well to add it to my bike ride this morning, so I stopped by there and got a shakshuka danish for Carla, which she loved, and a guava passionfruit cheese danish for myself, which was even better than the guava pastry yesterday. Definitely will be going back to this place again.

3. I'm going to Universal Studios tonight for Halloween Horror. The traffic will be worse if I got near the start time for the event, so I'm planning to go earlier in the afternoon and use my annual pass to get in early. I've never been to this sort of "scary" Halloween event so I'm curious to see what it will be like.

4. Molly's all packed up and ready to ship!

1. I had a 5-6pm meeting today, which frankly should be illegal on the eve of a four day weekend, but although I got home late, I now have that four day weekend to look forward to and look forward to it I will!

2. We had already been planning to order dinner tonight, but that worked out especially well considering I was getting home late. We got Coco Ichibanya curry, which is always delicious.

3. That house I took some pics of the other day rearranged their Halloween decorations and added a ton more. They're really going hard!

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4. When I was out riding my bike this morning, Carla texted me and asked me if I could stop somewher for breakfast, so I stopped at the Mexican bakery that has pastries and breakfast burritos and got her a burrito and me a guava pastry and both were very tasty. The pastry was not the typical guava cheese, but just guava, and it had so much jam and the jam was so good. I would definitely get that again.

5. Tuxie!

Quick drive-by rec: The Ultimate Gene Wolfe Library, 38 books for $20.

I think this may be every book Wolfe ever wrote, except for the disowned and reportedly awful Operation Ares.

The one item selection is solid; the four-item selection is half things I haven't read. Honestly I would have followed the evil logic of putting only one half of the Book of the Sun in the solo bundle by replacing The Wizard with another solo pick, like Peace or The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, or the opening of another series, like Soldier of the Mist.

Humble Bundle really killing it lately with SF authors who started in the 70s and wrote their most famous work in the 80s and 90s, huh. Possibly because those are writers who've had enough time to build up a substantial enough body of work for a bundle.

The book's had the two simultaneously existing from the start, but at a distance - the threats that " Sin Es Tro " and Hector Hammond represented were very separate.

Issue #17 put one in the former - issue #18's a bit of the pulp history of the world in which the latter thrives.

Issue #19's more of that history from a more grim angle.

( It's hitting the same notes as the Absolute Evil one-shot. )

- Film: Sense and Sensibility (2026), is like Jane Austen's novel re-written as Emily Bronte fan fiction but with the original happy ending. This is not a compliment. The best thing in this is Fiona Shaw, obviously. The worst thing is the Strictly-goes-ceilidh dance choreography. The best beasts are the dogs who are all very good dogs, clearly. The cinematography is good, and there's nothing wrong with the individual acting (although some of the cast are doing historical costume drama style and some are doing 21st century movie style so the characters don't quite fit together), but the script is what it is and the director didn't manage to pull the notably disparate styles of story and acting together into a coherent whole. [/Kate Winslet is still Marianne]
A messy 3/5, because it's mostly not actually bad but merely fails to cohere as a single artistic creation due to its wuthering sensibility.

- Reading: up to book 71 but behind on posting so I continue to redact the merely average and will inflict poetry on your feeds in separate posts whenever.

57. A Mermaid's Diary, by Chris Riddell, 2025, children's fantasy novel, 5/5
With Riddell's fabulous illustrations for his fantastical story of a mermaid who has to save her home neighbourhood from developers planning a golf resort. Includes many mildly parodic nods to classic children's literature.

66. The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess, by Tom Gauld, 2021, children's picture fantasy novel, 4/5
Read twice: once for the text and once for the pictures.

68. Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, by Charlotte Turner Smith, 1784-1800, poetry, 4/5
Not to my personal taste but undeniably good - demonstrating her revival of the English sonnet, and her powerful influence on Romantic poetry.

Sonnet LXVII
[...]
But to my heart congenial is the gloom
Which hides me from a world I wish to shun;
That scene where ruin saps the mouldering tomb
Suits with the sadness of a wretch undone.
Nor is the deepest shade, the keenest air,
Black as my fate, or cold as my despair.

Sonnet LXXIII
Thou! whom prosperity has always led
O'er level paths, with moss and flow'rets strewn;
For whom she still prepares a downy bed
With roses scatter'd, and to thorns unknown,
Wilt thou yet murmur at a misplaced leaf?
Think, ere thy irritable nerves repine,
How many, born with feeling keen as thine,
Taste all the sad vicissitudes of grief;
How many steep in tears their scanty bread;
Or, lost to reason, sorrow's victims rave;
How many know not where to lay their head;
While some are driven by anguish to the grave!
Think; nor impatient at a feather's weight,
Mar the uncommon blessings of thy fate!

"The horror imagery is very patient in a way that I really admire, but then when it cuts loose, just some of the visuals that I see in manga comics are so over the top and upsetting in a way that really just serves horror comics so well. It's not like nobody's drawing gross shit in Western horror comics, but something about manga just really hits hard. I don't know. I just really admire it. So yeah, I'm just drawing on that for for influence. The visual style of Midnight Spider-Man is very East meets West." - Phillip Kennedy Johnson

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