We have ants in our kitchen. Frankly, we’re shocked that it’s taken 18 years for the first invasion attempt.

Just finished rereading Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O’Brian, the last of the 20-book Aubrey/Maturin series. Just like in the previous couple books, there were a few oddities that might have been caught by a more vigilant editor. But the story as a whole is sound, and all is forgiven for the ending, which has brought tears to my eyes each time I’ve read it.

Moved a bunch of mulch yesterday from the driveway to where Meghan needed it. Also, removed a scraggly old lavender bush (planted when we moved into the house!), and a couple yellow currant trees which never took to their location.

Current earworm: “Makes No Sense At All” by Hüsker Dü, unseating “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” by R.E.M., which unseated “Chameleon” by Herbie Hancock, which unseated….

Finished rereading The Hundred Days by Patrick O’Brian, book 19 of the Aubrey/Maturin series. We’re nearing the end, with a few more odd tics on O’Brian’s part, along with the sudden deaths of two secondary characters who have been in the books since the earliest days — one on-screen, the other off-. I understand why he removed at least one of them (no more new stories to tell), but both were handled in a very flat, nearly-emotionless manner.

Finished rereading The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O’Brian, book 18 of the Aubrey/Maturin series. This was an odd one: a couple chapters involving enclosure and boxing felt like O’Brian had just been reading about them and decided to put them in his own book, and there was a faint repetitious quality. On the other hand, it was gratifying to watch them sail past the Pointe du Raz while on the Brest blockade, and the sweet, faintly melancholy ending would have made a good finish to the series … except that Napoleon just escaped from Elba, and there are still two books remaining.

Today’s kitchen victory: the dude made tzatziki.

Finished reading Duck Season by David McAninch, about the food and culture of Gascony. I’m slow at reading this kind of book, and I had other things that distracted me, but I loved the writing, and need to try cooking various Gascon dishes.

We went down to Portland Oregon City for an overnight trip to visit our recently-departed neighbors.

Hiked maybe ⅗︎ of the way up Mt. Teneriffe this morning, before I decided I wasn’t in as good shape as I’d hoped. There’s a Metro bus that runs from Capitol Hill to the Mt. Teneriffe and Mt. Si trailheads on summer weekends.

Making it all the way up Teneriffe and Si on consecutive days wouldn’t be bad practice for the Alpine section of the E5, which I haven’t walked.

Finished rereading The Commodore by Patrick O’Brian, book 17 of the Aubrey/Maturin series. Features a grim description of one of the less-awful ships in the Atlantic slavery trade.

I’ve made some improvements to my commonplace book — what I’m calling my link posts — and I have a few weeks of new posts queued, one every evening.

Yesterday was a bus adventure with the bambina: to the cat cafe on Capitol Hill, then the aquarium and the wheel on the waterfront, and then back up to Capitol Hill for ice cream.

Finished reading Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel. I enjoyed it, though I was quite tired of some of the characters by the end of the book. The story had a couple coincidental meetings that were even less plausible than some in Station Eleven — we’ll see if this is a recurring motif in her work.

Alas, this means that all older posts are marked “(edited)”, but I find it hard to care very much. Maybe I’ll fix it in the next week or so? Okay, fine, I fixed it (by making sure to preserve timestamps when using rsync to copy the source files, and not using git to repopulate the files).