Soup etc.

We finally have a landscaper on the job to fix up our front planter. Oh, hurrah. Next week.

I'm still waiting for news from the family about what, exactly, happened yesterday. Several of you have offered that I should let you know if you can do anything helpful. I appreciate it even though I can't think of anything.

I've been going through the soup cookbook greykev gave markgritter and me for a wedding present. Usually when I look at menu-planning, I'm concerned with what we want to eat. If I'm looking at what I want to eat, it usually means "for lunch, and what leftovers do we have in the back of the fridge?" But in this case, markgritter and timprov will be cooking for themselves/each other/anyone else who comes along, and I will have made soups specifically for myself. So I have a short list of things that I've wanted to try and never been able to justify making when no one else seemed interested. Crab and apple soup for the next few days. Pumpkin bisque for when I want something totally smooth. Soup, soup, soup. The main problem we have around here is that I consider soup a full meal for myself, even if it's not served with rice, bread, chunks o' meat, whatever. Bowl of creamy tomato soup, and I'm good. Bowl of creamy tomato soup, and timprov feels he's had an appetizer. (And I can see that if I ate more, I would get sick of the same veggie soup mouthful after mouthful. But I don't eat more, so there's that.) I'm also the only person in the house who likes non-black beans, but I don't have to care: I can make matociquala's soup. This is my plan for the weekend: make soup. Make more soup. Some pudding for a break. Then soup.

I started reading Liz Williams's The Banquet of the Lords of Night and Other Stories this morning. The thing about a short story collection from an author whose books have always been just slightly off-target for me is that it's a whole bunch of smaller stories that are also slightly off-target for me. It's very strange. Not bad, just strange.

There will be more poking at "Singing Them Back" when I'm back from the grocery store, maybe, I hope. Or else tonight. It's a good day for work on it, I think. Being a little brood-y doesn't hurt.

Crits and bouncing off

We have a markgritter again, though it certainly took long enough for the airport to disgorge him.

At the airport I finished reading Liz Williams's The Banquet of the Lords of Night and Other Stories. I am officially done with Liz Williams until someone I respect specifically recommends one of her books as better than the others. I've read four novels and a short story collection, and I kept wanting to like them, and not a one really clicked for me. That seems like a fair try to me.

If you're on the filter of people who occasionally want to do crits for me, you will have just seen a post where I'm soliciting some. If you can't see that post and would like to be in on that filter, please do let me know. No obligations involved with being on the filter, of course.

Treason's Harbour and I are going to bed.