Last week, a scattershot summary.
I'm not even going to try to organize my thoughts. It was a pinball week of bouncing from one activity to the next, and I just want to get everything noted in one place before I forget even more than I probably already have.
There was laundry (5 loads) and pantry-restock shopping. There were the usual workshifts, and a fanTAStically fun day catching up with one of my artist-friends. I baked shortbreads (my new favorite recipe) and prepped lotsa vegetables for freezing.
The weather was one long fall-preview, with most days still summer-hot but the nights get cold so I would wear wear fleecy warm hoodies & sleep under a fluffy quilt with the windows open. And there was rain. Which is good, because August is meant to be rainy, and the garden loves a good soaking.
Speaking of the garden...it's still going strong. The Roma tomatoes did not get the memo about determinate meaning "stop growing more tomatoes after the big crop is done." Looks like they'll keep producing for at least another month. Very glad I only got two plants.
The peppers are fighting their way to the sun around the tomato plants. Not at all sure half of them are the varieties their labels indicated, one jalapeño is growing suspiciously upright, small, fruits that are hella spicy, and the green chilis are H U G E & mild, more like italian roasting pepers, but...they're all tasty, so, serendipity wins.
And the pumpkin variety I planted this year is up to 7 full-sized pumpkins. SEVEN. That's six more than I've ever gotten. I think this is the first time they've had enough pollinators around to support a decent harvest. Three are already orange so I have no doubt they'll all be ripe before frost.
The best day of the week was once again a day spent out on the patio catching up with a friend. Last week I hung out with talented textile wizard & quilting expert Cheryl, this week it was fellow indie author & majorly talented graphic artist Dex Greenbright.
Our ADHD chat bounced from current projects & recent events through art, pets, history, annoying real estate problems, air conditioning failures, & bird identification. AND now I have a commission slot reserved for doing Rollover series-related art cards or the fall conventions. V excite. Collaborating w/fellow creatives is THE BEST.
Yes, there will be fun Rollover series tie-in cards. Like playing cards, but not practical. There will be symbols/logos for all the major power series, plus either numeric cards or counters for power rankings. The idea is, people can pick a card to see if they have the R-factor, and if they do, they have to draw a rollover card & rating counter. Still working on the how of it all, but it's gonna happen.
The only problem with being outside this year is that every time I catch a whiff of smoke from a backyard firepit, I worry about all the folk I know dealing w/wildfires right now. And the ones who aren't on fire are roasting hot or flooding....or both. Anyway. That's my one big downer thought for this post.
In other news that will shock no one, I've had the TV on a lot for background whenever I've been indoors. So. Lotsa things got watched.
In the plus column: Lincoln Lawyer. Solid not-too-lawyerish lawyer show. My one complaint is that the lead actor looks and sounds almost exactly like how I imagine Justin Wyatt, only (alas) the actor is about 6" too tall.
Also entirely watchable: the movie Heart of Stone. A basic action flick. I suspect it would've been annoyingly clihe if I'd been concentrating on it instead of glacning up a lot while doing other things. Techthriller with broadly sketched characters & a lot of pretty people driving things fast.
I started a rewatch of Deep Blue Sea, because I couldn't remember if it was good-bad or bad-bad. Spoiler alert, it was SO bad I fast-forwarded through most of it just to see if I guessed right about who lived & died. (Nope. Guessed wrong.) Why was it bad? I think it was pitched as Rise of Planet Of The Apes meets Jaws, but done like a techno-thriller, and so it was doomed because that's like making a mustard and broccoli sandwich with . Not only was the concept stupid and the writing stilted, but the sound quality was shit, the soundtrack was an ill-suited Big Drama Action score, and the visuals were not even B-movie grade.
I needed a complete change of pace after that, and Wellington Paranormal came through for me. It's a Kiwi mockumentary about buddy cops investigate spooky things. Unserious, absurdly silly special effects, but well written & acted and funny as hell.
Other random observations & opinions
The business strategy of "move fast and break things" so beloved of "tech innnovators" is seriously a cartoon villain's motto. The list of reasons it's just a horror show of an idea is so long it deserves it's own post, but simply thinking about it makes me to annoyed to write more about it.
Rather than ask why more people do not regularly check the National Hurricane Center website during hurricane season, follow the Inciweb fire map during wildfire season, and the USGS Earthquake site just, oh, in general, Imma do a post of links later this week. I'll drop the rainfall tracker and the best weather radar for storms, too. Because why not?
And a thing I've been wondering: do most people really not make have rudimentary disaster discussions & plans for their households? And have no idea what their risks are for various disasters? Yeah, that's another post right there, too.
So that's it until later.
Here be the usual wrap-up note w/links to some of my writing.