For a while, anyway.
A few more pieces on the puzzle. I didn't buy a new lamp - I moved one from another room.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
Mostly, I've been reading. If this idea interests you, follow me over the orange decorative object.
I believe I frequently mention that I prefer my high adventure mixed with low comedy. Given my preference is actually for the comedy, sometimes the adventure is a bit low as well.
I recently purchased a book for my Kindle that is providing a fair number of chortles, along with the occasional guffaw: The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant. I feel a certain amount of sympathy for the character, having grown up a small town geek myself. It's a collection of novellas, actually - and I'm only about halfway into the second story (I have a fairly large stack of books that I'm reading all at the same time), but I am enjoying it.
It's put me firmly in mind of a series by Dean James, the Simon Kirby-Jones mysteries, of which there are four: Posted to Death; Decorated to Death; Faked to Death; and Baked to Death. Simon Kirby-Jones is a gay vampire, turned (by a visiting professor from England) during his time as a post-doc at a university in Texas - being a Southern gentleman by birth and breeding.
The books take place in a village in England, since Simon was deeded a house in that village by the vampire that turned him. He can go out during the day if need be because vampires working at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, developed a medication that allows this, and lets vampires ignore the urge to hunt. He makes his living (so to speak) by writing serious history under his own name and hard-boiled mysteries with a female detective and bodice-ripper romances under two different pseudonyms. One of the mysteries actually revolves around that. Have I mentioned I also enjoy fluff? These are fluff.
The author has written more serious mysteries as Dean James (which appears to be his real name), and is presently producing a series (with, apparently, a spin-off series) under the pen name Miranda James. These involve a librarian at a small Southern university named Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel. Charlie is not gay, but several of the secondary characters are. Not so fluffy, but light, and I do enjoy them.
I recently ran across a three-part series by Margaret Mayhew at the library: Old Soldiers Never Die, Three Silent Things, and Dry Bones. I can't say I like the police detective in the first two (who is way too full of himself), but I do enjoy the village resident characters - the main one of which in the books is the newest, a retired colonel. I checked on Amazon, and it appears there is a fourth newly released: The Seventh Link. I checked on the library website and they have it, with all copies out, so I put a hold on it. I look forward to it.
The granddaughter's team lost again, but not as badly. The team they were playing had been getting seriously creamed in their other games. My granddaughter was goalie again, and did much better - without getting tangled in the net. After we got home from the game, my granddaughter (who is still in trouble for something she did a week or so ago) came over and we finished reading Dealing with Dragons (reading and drawing are the only entertainments she is currently allowed). Next time she comes over to read, we start on the next of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Searching for Dragons.
And Mercedes Lackey's newest Valdemar book finally arrived at my door last Wednesday. It's as good as any of the others, and a somewhat faster read than most of them. I'm already looking forward to the sequel.
Today's project is a trip to the library with my granddaughter, and lunch out with her. We are going to the Midlands branch again, and lunch at Burgerville like the last time. I did tell her that we wouldn't always be going to that branch or to Burgerville - she is fine with this. The next time we go to the library, I think it will be to the Central branch, which is downtown, and lunch at Pastini, which is Italian food and just around the corner from the library.