Reading: Since last weekend, I've finished reading Rebecca Mahoney's The Memory Eater and read Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone and Aster Glenn Gray's The Wolf and the Girl, and scruloose and I finished listening to Network Effect. (One Murderbot audiobook left to go! At least until whenever the new one comes out next year.)

I'd never read any of The Dark is Rising [series] before, but a while back I got the whole set in an ebook bundle, and this week I remembered to actually ask around about which part of people read seasonally (or if it's the whole thing) and confirmed that winter solstice is indeed the season in question. So I expect to take a stab at reading The Dark is Rising [book] in a few weeks.

Seasonally related: Llinos Cathryn Thomas has a new seasonal novella out, All is Bright, which I understand can just be read like any other book but is written to work as an Advent countdown, one chapter a day. Hopefully I'll remember to start that on Monday, alongside whatever else I pick up next.

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Watching: Having finally finished Network Effect, scruloose and I dipped back into Silo season 2 last night. Three whole episodes down now!

I also succumbed to anticipatory fandom hype and watched the first two episodes of Heated Rivalry. I can't say I'm in love, but it looks like it's only six episodes total, so I expect I'll keep on with it. [Content note: the sex scenes are fairly graphic, at least by my fuzzy impression of standards for a mainstream show.] I have zero familiarity with the book, so no idea what's going to happen or how it is as an adaptation.

[Via The Rec Centre: "How ‘Heated Rivalry’ Became the Internet’s Favorite Show — Before It’s Even Aired".]

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Householding: We've ordered a new upright freezer for the garage, since the current one is still being cranky. Once we've swapped the new one in (ETA: next weekend), scruloose may take a stab at repairing it; that might've been the first step if it had been an appliance that's not full of food that needs to stay frozen, but with no idea what we would've done with said food during the attempt and troubleshooting and repair, and given how busy they've been lately, it wasn't a good choice right now. If they're able to fix the old one, we should be able to rehome it with someone who needs one.

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Cooking: We did indeed make the Smitten Kitchen Roast Chicken with Schmaltzy Cabbage last weekend, and it was really good. I've been pleased about how many vegetables it turns out I can find palatable in some situations, but I think this was the most actual enjoyment I've had from one. (The cabbage didn't do as well as a leftover the next night as the chicken itself did, but was still fine.)

A day off without sleeping in at all feels so expansive! (scruloose had to be out a bit early all this week, so I've been getting up a bit earlier too to do my supervision part of the clowder's breakfast routine.) But I took the day off mainly to try to get some manga work done, so going back to bed after that seemed counterproductive. Somehow it's not even 10 AM yet? Incredible. (Could I have used the sleep, though? Oh yes.)

Happy day-after-Thanksgiving to the USians* observing this emotionally-complex holiday. I enjoy the food chatter from afar. Someone on a cooking feed on Bluesky posted about doing a stuffing flight, and now I really want a stuffing flight, although the specific types they'd made didn't sing to me. ^^;

*I've been seeing the edges of Discourse about this term on Bluesky, and several people complained about the pronunciation/having no good pronunciation options, which made me realize that to me it's strictly a term for writing, not saying. It works fine visually. *shrugs*

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First Yule scent of the year: But Men Loved Darkness Better Than Light (2009 vintage). I'd forgotten how much I love this one.

Last year I had a pretty good streak of wearing Weenie scents, and then in November scruloose's breathing was a bit rough, and we didn't think it was the BPAL, but I didn't wear any through the Christmas season. (It turned out not to be what was causing the problem, which has been IDed and dealt with.) So maybe this year. (As always, the Weenie and Yule updates tempted me dreadfully, but the added horror of current crossborder shipping gave me extra armor against getting in on a decant circle.)

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I'm finally listening to the new Florence + The Machine album; listening to new music takes even longer now than it used to, and I've never been quick about listening or bonding. Given the season, after this album I'll probably switch to Christmas music while working. As long as it's good (wholly subjective, obviously, along with if you're a Christmas person and if seasonal music doesn't hit all the wrong buttons in general), Christmas music is kind of ideal for when I'm trying to just get some work done--it doesn't require the attention that beloved favorite music or new-to-me music does, even if it's not a recording I'm familiar with. Handy!

(Yesterday I deployed some for the first time this year. I didn't know Carole King had a holiday album, although it's never a surprise when a western musician does. *eyes Tori Amos holiday album* [Which I do listen to.] And now I've heard it once and never need to hear it again.)

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Also on the music front, I finally cut off my Spotify subscription, and I'm trying out Qobuz after waffling between it and Deezer. Neither of them has native Linux desktop support or a Roku app, either of which would've weighted my decision significantly, and Qobuz allows you to actually buy music--apparently DRM-free, no less!--so I'm starting here.

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Package-delivery updates cover such a bizarre spectrum. I currently have in my inbox: a) an update from a courier saying they've got my package and will deliver it this afternoon, with no indication of the sender, and I do not have a ship notification from anywhere that makes it obvious, so...I guess we'll see soon, and b) a Canada Post "Ship Notification for Item" (not to be confused with a "your item is out for delivery" notification) that didn't arrive in my inbox until a couple of hours after the CP person had already theoretically been by and attempted delivery. (Canada Post folks are better than others about actually attempting delivery, so I have to assume I just didn't hear the doorbell somehow, but the email timing remains bizarre.)

I complain sometimes about time and the surreality of the passage thereof and whatnot, but this morning I had several minutes of genuinely wondering if the way the year is barreling toward its end meant the first Sunday of Advent had already passed without my even noticing. I'm not sure if something about the timing of US Thanksgiving threw me off, or if it's as simple as my not having put "Advent begins" on my calendar, which I think I usually note in advance. (In practical terms it'd be fine; as it happens, I'm planning to use a "burn a bit every day of December" Advent candle, which probably means not breaking out the wreath for the four Sundays. But still.)

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I often have weird dreams and don't usually remember much about them, but until today I'm not sure I'd ever before woken up from a dream where I was watching a movie? In the case of this dream, I was at the theatre watching what was officially a Newsflesh film adaptation, but in the sense that (from what I know of it, never having seen it) the World War Z movie is based on that book, which is to say, really not at all. ("Lead" characters who were supposed to be Georgia and Shaun, yes, but nothing to do with [*checks notes*] characters-as-people, zombies, viruses, or politics, and possibly not journalism, either. I think there was some sort of lab creating humanoid/animal mixes of some sort, possibly giving them guns.) It went on for quite some time.

My dream-self was appalled, of course, but at least glad to think Seanan had presumably gotten a decent chunk of money for the rights. She's got cats to feed!