Finished reading On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Quick and bracing; nothing I didn’t already know, but a good refresher.

Met Mom for dinner in U Village.

Another thing that strikes me about Moonbound is its fundamental kindness and generosity.

Finished reading Moonbound by Robin Sloan. The book started with a banger of a prologue, eased off a fair bit, and brought it back up for the finale. Even though I didn’t quite fall in love with the book, I enjoyed it thoroughly, perhaps because it consistently surprised me.

Walking to the grocery store this morning, I took a bad step, and instead of twisting my ankle I banged my knees something fierce — good road rash, and I presume serious bruises coming. (I can still walk fine though, so it can’t be too bad.)

Tonight’s kitchen victory: salade Niçoise, always a delight, and always guaranteed to trash the kitchen.

Worked with Meghan in the front yard, neatening and trimming.

After Meghan pointed out the mille-feuille of rust in the old grill, along with other structural degradation, we went out to get a replacement that was less likely to catch fire and/or melt. Then we grilled sausages.

It was a little chaotic, but the dude and I baked a cherry pie this afternoon.

Had dinner out in the carport.

The dude had friends over yesterday evening (plus the bambina and a couple of hers), hanging out in the carport and playing games and drinking mulled cider.

Finished reading Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie, a collection of short stories. A handful are set, at least notionally, in her Imperial Radch setting, several are in the setting of The Raven Tower, and several others are their own things. I enjoyed all of them to greater or lesser degrees; The Raven Tower in particular seems perfect for short stories.

Meghan and I got the AC set up at Mom’s, I took care of a couple other tasks, and the four of us had dinner with her.

Mowed the lawn, then Meghan and I cleaned the carport.

One of my favorite purchases ever, several years ago, was a dozen foot-long extension cords from Monoprice; they came in a single bundle in the shipping envelope. We’ve used quite a few of them over the years, and gave a bunch away. My second dozen arrived today, and they were each in their own plastic bag, each with a tightly-zip-tied warning tag literally the same length as the cord, all in another bag, all in a shipping envelope: so much wasteful packaging that’s manifested in that time. I still love the idea of these extension cords, but I won’t buy them from Monoprice again.