Runner-up for Queen of the UFO's

Is eating my brain.  And my time.  Every time I come on planning to post, I find another list of recs that dine so helpfully provides and I'm completely distracted!

And yes, it's the Heated Rivalry fandom that's gotten to me. I can not believe I am reading about Hockey, seriously.  Okay, I skim the actual hockey stuff, but the story line is compelling.  True, I've not seen the show nor read the books that it's based on, but there's enough out there to at least have a general idea.  I have to say my favourite trope? tag? (whatever) is WAG Ilya. Most stories under that tag are generally lighthearted, and that's something that I'm preferring these days. All of this leads me to:

Question of The Day:

February 8. How often do you read fiction?
Daily. And that's been pretty much the case since I learned to read.  I do read non-fiction occasionally, mostly technical stuff relating to my hobbies (obsessions, more like) and occasional news reports and such, but my days begin and end with reading fiction.

Some catching up:

February 1. What’s your favourite hot beverage? How do you make it?  
Coffee.  And I do pour-over (with a set up from Ikea that was about $15) as I'm sick of replacing coffee makers so often (3 in the last 2 years).  We've had the same kettle for over 10!

February 2. When was the last time you saw an original hand-painted painting? 
Earlier today when I was in Thing Two's room.  It's their art work.  For art by a non-family member?  Last time I was at Mom and Dad's.

February 3. Is there a book you’ve seen made into a film and been disappointed with the result?
Not that I can think of.  But then I don't see that many films.

February 4. How old is the oldest book you own?
1905.  It's a cookbook from my Grandma, but it was probably passed down from her Mother, considering the age.  

Zed
P.S. Not exactly typical Feb. weather.  It hit +19 C/66.2 F on Thursday and has been above +10 C/50 F since.  Looks like it'll be a bit cooler (highs around +8 C/46.4F) with no snow in the forecast until next Monday at the earliest. 

 

 

150 years, eh?  Not all that long in the grand scheme of things, but still a respectable number of years for  a country, so Happy Birthday Canada.  We celebrated by avoiding any of the official stuff {crowds of people aren't our thing} and spent time taking pictures of yarn.  What, I like yarn and what's more, I have a lot of it.  A good amount of which I'd like to sell. Like a storage unit worth. Well, 1/2 a storage unit.  The other 1/2 is fabric, which I'd also like to sell, but the yarn was the focus today. 

In other news, I'm a tad annoyed with myself.  When I set this up, I intended to post at least a couple of times a week and here we are almost 2 months in and it's been over a month since I posted.  It's not that I don't have anything to say {I have lots to say, just ask any one who knows me ;D}, but actually sitting down and writing, yeah, not so good with that.

I have, of course, been reading.  I've continued my forays into the Harry Potter fandom {carefully, very carefully} and have found some absolutely fantastic stuff.  I've also found stuff that's had me hitting the back button so quickly I may have damaged something, but we won't talk about that ;D  As is so often the case, I find myself drawn to crossovers. Other magic/supernatural fandoms would be the obvious choices for crossovers with HP, but contrary soul that I am, I like the less obvious choices.  Some of my favourite crossovers with HP are Stargate (both Atlantis and SG-1) and Sherlock Holmes.  

I'm still avoiding huge chunks of the fandom and I don't expect that to change.  My resistance/avoidance of fan fiction and related works in this fandom has to do with how I came to read the HP books originally.  BTW I saw that the 20th Anniversary of the original publication date was earlier this week and I had a bit of a freak out.  20 years, no!!! Now I feel really, really old.  

See in September of 1997 Thing Two {my youngest aside from the cats} was in Grade 6 {so 11 years old} and the teacher decided to read to the class this book he had picked up while on vacation in the UK that summer.  Said book was a great hit with the class in general and Thing Two in particular. So, as soon as a version was available to us {through the Scholastic book club~remember those?} we bought a copy for our household.  And we all read it.  Even Thing One who was Grade Ten that year. Now HP is firmly associated in my mind with Thing Two and her friends. Which makes reading certain types of fan fiction awkward, to say the least.  Certain circumstances can alleviate the awkwardness, but it's not always obvious by tags which fics will fit into my rather narrow definition of acceptable.  All on me of course, I'm sure there are fantastic fics out there that I miss because of my, well, hang up, but I'm okay with that.

I've been reading other things as well, but I understand there's a beer calling my name so I'll leave you with a pic of the final furry member of the family, Kaleb.

Ahhh, the May long weekend, our official start to summer.  This year it actually feels summerish.  Highs have been low to mid twenties (Celsius) and sunny.  Not like some years when it snows :D  Aside from the grocery run today, we've been having a very lazy weekend.  S'nice not having to worry about yard work and the like.  It's almost as nice as not having to shovel snow!  I didn't think I'd like condo living, but I'm seeing some real benefits here.

All this lazing about has given me time to fuss though.  I've got some scenes from "lost" fics stuck in my head and  I've been trying to find them again.  This happens to me every so often, mostly because I have weird reading habits.  I am a chronic insomniac and tend to read instead of tossing and turning.  Which would be fine if I didn't occasionally "read" with my eyes closed, or "fall down the rabbit hole" while 1/2 asleep with no idea how I got there. So the last couple of days I've been searching AO3 and various writers' blogs to see if I can locate the "missing" fics.  I did find one, it was hiding in the middle of a collection of short fics., so it didn't have a separate description.  Think I'll have to give up on the other two at this point, but who knows, maybe I'll stumble across 'em again some day.

And just to see if it was a fluke last time, I'm going to try to leave another cat pic. Because cats ;D



This is Pigwidgeon aka Piggie or Widgie and she won't share the toys.