Black and Blue & Busy All Over

Busy times in the last little while. Lots of randomness and many life detours.First, the reading. Raising Caine  Charles E Gannon. The third of three books in a series. The ending makes clear there will be more. (Not a cliffhanger. More like a traditional television season ending.)  Still enjoyable, but still very much hard SF.  This one read faster than the other two, as I'd reacquainted myself with the chewy, sticky style and started compensating.A Scot In the Dark Sarah MacLean. Fluffy, fluffy historical romance. Some consent issues, unusual from this author.Summer Is For Lovers Jennifer McQuiston. Quite fun. Took place in Brighton, which gets terribly neglected in most British historicals, it revolved around a swimming competition and had some interesting social commentary.Jumper's Hope Carol Van Natta. Special mention for this one. I got a sneak peak at this upcoming SF novel as a beta reader.  It is a super-shiny awesome space opera, and it releases later this fall. If you want to catch up on the series first, click the author's name above to be magically transported to her web page.Watching. The usual. Television and movies.Supergirl. This one was hard to watch with Spouseman around, as he has zero tolerance for superpower tropes and stilted dialogue. I enjoy the heck out of it, so I chased the snarky comment generator off to play Elder Scrolls elsewhere. I gave up on Flash because TIME TRAVEL UGH, and on Green Arrow because ANGST UGH, but this series--season one, at least--is treading that fine path between camp silliness and serious dramatic development. All the recommends.Trumbo. A movie about political fear-mongering and strife destroying lives?  Lots of resonance with current events, sadly.  Not an easy watch but an excellent one, and I can see why Bryan Cranston was nominated for an Oscar. He was brilliant.Extraction. I had to bring it home. I will watch any Bruce Willis movie without shame. I will not pay to watch them, and this movie is a good example of why. It's only been a week and I could not begin to tell you the plot. Generic action thriller. I think there was a kidnapping? And some villains. Not recommended.Ghostbusters. The extended edition has MUCH MORE CHRIS HEMSWORTH DANCING. There were also a couple of scenes that make the continuity flow better. I can see why much of it was cut. The pacing for an action movie is so delicate. It would have been too long in the theater. At home on the couch? Delightful.All the other random happenings.  I have to record them somewhere because I forget everything without written proof. 

1. Found out I get to spend an arm and a leg getting rid of a tooth that wants to dissolve my jawbone. Thank heavens for installment plans. Oral surgery next week.
2. Played human signpost for four hours in the freezing dark on a pumpkin walk. Loved every minute. (Pics at the end of the post)
3. Got sick but got better, hurt myself doing everyday things but am healing okay, maintaining nominal function in all limbs and organs.
4. Renewed the website package for a year. Might be pointless, but as a good poet says, best to keep a window open. Some goodly people made a point of mentioning they understood and shared the frustration.  Others offered warm cuddlies and reviews. The last feather feather that tipped the scales: a video I'll call  Benedict Cumberbatch Reads A Letter. Some NSFW language. Much inspiration.
5. Finished the final revisions on Flight Plan's second edition and got the new cover  back. Should have the ebook editions finished by the end of the week. Better four months late than never, right? RIGHT?! Right.
6. Caught up on other writing obligations and stuffed a beta read into the work hours. SO WORTH IT. Always great when a work read is enjoyable too.
7. Rediscovered the fun of beer breads. Banana beer bread. Savory cheese beer bread.  Chocolate chip zucchini beer bread. Lots of tastiness.
8. Scheduled fall yard cleanup with the landscape crew who do my heavy lifting these days. (see point 3 for why I'm not doing it for myself.)  If you want two yucca plants or three Rose of Sharon saplings, mine are free to good homes until Nov 15, and then they're gone-gone-gone.
9. Took a city day trip for the first time in ages. Visited the Shedd Aquarium (for the first time in ages.)

The pumpkins from the Night of 1000 Jack O' Lanterns event were gorgeous, so I'm sharing a few even though my photography is not so good.

And I'm showing off my new book cover. Thanks to Nicole Grandinetti for taking my odd ideas and bad pics and fusing them into shininess. And penguins for no reason. (They're molting, thus the cloaks and mohawks)