Mad Times

Condo living

I haven't been organized enough to get some cat pictures up in advance for while we're gone so this little scene of domestic bliss (from a couple of weeks ago when it was much cooler) will have to hold Alice and Theo's fans until we get home. See you all in August!

Procrastination

This weave has the not-very-evocative name of Half Persian 4-1. The instructions behind the link say "Half Persian 4-1 is widely considered one of the most difficult chainmaille weaves," but once I got past the tricky first few links, it was pretty easy which I must attribute to those being really good directions. I made this as a birthday present for my soon-to-be 5-year-old niece, but I got a little carried away and made it long enough for my wrist. Easy enough to make it shorter when I have her wrist in range to determine how much shorter.

I haven't mentioned here that we're going with said niece and her parents on a trip to the Philippines. We leave for CA on Saturday and leave the country on Monday night. So of course the most urgent thing I have to work on is a bracelet for a girl we already have gifts for. And the next most urgent thing is to blog about it.

No room for dad

Not sure where they expect me to sleep...

Lost Glove #96

I couldn't get any closer to this one without risking life and limb.

Singer by Jean Thesman

This was the last book I read for this year's Endeavour Award. I actually "read" a couple other books that didn't meet the criteria for writing them up here. I only post books that I read the whole book with no skimming. Some of the last few books (which shall remain nameless) were so clearly not contenders that I did some serious skimming so I could get on to the next one.

This book had its moments, but it came close to making me skim too. It's playing with a Welsh folk tale and there's a prologue that outlines the tale (in which a king's beautiful children are turned into swans by their evil step mother until another woman comes along to break the curse). The problem I had is that most of the events of the book tell the tale of the woman who broke the curse and while there are all kinds of portents and signs that presage the whole swan children episode, the story has nothing to do with the swan children until it's practically over. I think this could have worked, but the backstory Thesman puts together for her curse breaker just wasn't as engrossing as that brief summary of the fairy tale. And once the swan children do appear the telling of their tale really isn't much longer than the summary so there's no real payoff.

I guess I should have spoiler warnings on this stuff, but it just seemed like the book was self-spoiling, so I can't bring myself to care enough to bother.

Lost Glove #95

Saw this on Thomas Street in Seattle as we were walking from Seattle Center up the hill to REI last Saturday.

Cooling through cuteness

If this were an action shot it wouldn't be noteworthy, but Alice held this pose long enough for us to notice, find a camera, and take several pictures. Goof.