My car was in the shop basically all week. The check engine light came on, but the car was still running fine, so it took them a couple of days to find the wires that had fried, and then another couple of days to get the parts. In this week of thankfulness, I’m glad to have my car back. My local public transportation is kind of awful (unless I want to go downtown, which I don’t most days), so I relied on coworkers to get me to work and home again. Hooray for my coworkers.

But I have my car back! I can go and do things like get groceries!

And speaking of groceries… I’m staying home this Thanksgiving because, you know. Global pandemic. I decided to make it an Icelandic Thanksgiving, so for the various things I’m going to make, I had to buy skyr, buttermilk, and heavy whipping cream in addition to the milk I was buying anyway. So. Much. Dairy.

Obligatory Mina Photo:

I have a decorative crochet blanket that lives on the end of my bed. I washed it earlier this week and when I went to put it away, this kid was curled up on the top blanket, all cute and sleepy-like. I always feel bad when I’m putting a freshly-laundered whatever back on the bed, because she likes to sleep on the rumpled bedding, and she’s super cute most days, but she is mind-bendingly adorable whenever she’s sleepy.

So here is an extra dose of cute for the week.

What I Finished Reading Last Week:

• Masquerade in Lodi (Penric and Desdemona #9) by Lois McMaster Bujold

In the ninth installment of the Pen and Des novella series, we jump back in time a little bit, back to after Penric left Martensbridge for warmer climes. He’s working in the Venice-like city of Lodi when he is drawn into an investigation of the demonic possession of a young man. The demon is in ascendance, so they can’t get any information about the young man’s identity. So Penric calls upon an unlikely saint to help him deal with the demon in the midst of a citywide celebration of the chaotic god Penric follows. This wasn’t my favorite of the Pen and Des novellas, but it was a solid story, and fills in some of the gaps of a part of Penric’s life that was tragic, but has not been seen directly in any of the previous novellas.

What I’m Currently Reading:

• Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writings by Hilary Mantel (186/352)
• The Lost Queen (The Lost Queen Trilogy #1) by Signe Pike (280/527)
• The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth Trilogy #3) by N.K. Jemisin, audiobook narrated by Robin Miles (25%)

Mantel Pieces is a collection of essays and book reviews Hilary Mantel wrote for the London Review of Books from the late 1980s up to 2019. It’s odd reading reviews for books I’ve never even heard of, but Mantel is so good that they’re fascinating to read anyway. And it’s interesting to see how she develops from a fiery young critic to one who is more understanding and more nuanced in her reviews.

The Lost Queen takes the tales of Lailoken (from which some of the original tales of Merlin might have come, before they were linked to King Arthur) and the story of the Scottish Queen Langoureth and blends them into something that feels like it could have come straight from the historical record, if the historical record of sixth century Britain wasn’t so sketchy. So far it’s one of the best Arthurian retellings I’ve read, and I’ve already asked for the second book, The Forgotten Kingdom, for Christmas. It has both the elegant prose and that wind- and rain-swept feeling of Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy, with the feminist edge of The Mists of Avalon, without having that story’s tiresome narrative of “pagans universally good, Christians universally bad”. It’s interesting to see a story of a Britain in flux– under attack from the Saxons and Angles, and transitioning from pagan to Christian beliefs. Not all of the pagans are good, and not all of the Christians are bad. Because no matter how black and white we try to make the past out to be, society was just as complex then as it is now.

I’m fascinated to see where the story of The Stone Sky will end up. I understand where Nassun is coming from with her anger and her adolescent view of the world, but what she wants is frightening. I am really wondering what Essun will do about it, assuming she gets the chance to do so. And where will Hoa’s story go? Jemisin’s writing always keeps me on my toes.

What I Plan to Start Reading This Week:

• The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki by Anonymous, translated from the Icelandic by Jesse L. Byock

This saga’s origins are in fifth-century Denmark, though it was recorded in medieval Iceland. It is the story of kings, sorceresses, wizards, and berserker warriors, and it sounds fascinating. At just 78 pages, it shouldn’t take terribly long to get through.

A Stitch in Time:

I finished my witch hat!

It’s a little wonky here and there (I didn’t realize the crown had squished inward until after I took the picture. It’s usually straighter than that), and the brim isn’t as neat as I would like it to be, but it’s done! It was a great learning experience, and I kind of want to make another one, just to correct the mistakes I made the first time around. Or maybe I’ll make a pirate shirt. We’ll see.

I still haven’t bought any yarn for the Vasti shawl from my Northern Lights crochet pattern book, but I was so focused on the witch hat that I barely even thought about crocheting anything.

Adventures in Film Photography:

When I first got into photography, you went to great lengths to make sure your film didn’t get too hot and and your camera didn’t get light leaks and things like that. Nowadays, we buy film that’s been pre-exposed specifically to cause light leaks and make the film appear to be underexposed and de-saturated. It’s fun, but odd, given where I started with film photography.

I took a couple of hours during a day off a few weeks ago to wander around downtown and shoot a roll of Kono’s Moonstruck film. It’s an interesting effect, with its desaturation and low contrast effect:

About That Writing Thing:

Once again, time slipped away because of other things like housework, and I ended up not having as much time to write as I thought I would, but in the time that I’ve had, the writing has been going smoothly. I’m back to one of the viewpoint characters I’m most familiar with, which always makes the words come more easily. Pretty soon, the characters will be on the road, and soon after that I’ll be getting into the magical heart of the story. I can’t wait. I’ve been looking forward to writing it since last spring. It’s going to be great!