On Saturday, we met Mom and Greg and Jocelyn and their kids for the bambina’s dinner out.

Walked along the path of Thornton Creek down to Matthews Beach, then along the Burke-Gilman Trail to the light rail station: four hours, 11 miles, 23k steps. Rainy but not unpleasant.

Played Magic last night with the dude and Greg and his son.

Finished rereading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., at least 25 years since I first read it. I liked most of it, a kind of bleakly- or cynically-hopeful story of preservation of knowledge in a cycle of humanity’s self-destruction. Alas, the end of the book centers on a Catholic argument against suicide, which I found a little offputting.

Finished reading The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, the latest in the series that started with either The Goblin Emperor or The Witness for the Dead depending on how you’re counting. Like the others, this book is generous and compassionate, both towards and among its major characters. It focuses on reparations for sins committed by previous generations, which Addison handles thoughtfully. But two things: First, some offscreen cartoon villainy undercuts some of the care and thought that went into the resolution. Second, the book’s setting and language demand a lot from the reader, and the story picks up immediately after the previous left off; usually I like not reading awkward “remember this from the previous book” insertions, but if any book wants them, it’s this one. Do not pick this up as your first in the series.

Tonight’s kitchen victory: pan pizza.

Finished reading Matter by Iain M. Banks, another of his Culture stories. Some mind-blowing ideas, and a really good expansion of scope, and fundamentally a good story — let down a bit at the end by an epilogue whose tone feels a little sour compared to the rest.

Ants are back, after a fairly long absence. Can’t say I’d missed them.

The dude came over for dinner last night.

Had Mom over for brunch yesterday, then I went over to her place to set up a soundbar for her TV.

Saturday’s kitchen victory: a ton of Bolognese sauce.

The dude’s band class performed on the UW Seattle campus this evening. We went with Mom; it was really good.

The bambina and a friend went to Capitol Hill for doughnuts.

We had a brief thunderstorm last night, strong winds, and Mom lost power for the first time since moving here.

Finished reading Mordew by Alex Pheby; I finished the story about a week ago actually, but I’ve been slowly picking my way through the apocrypha at the end of the book. I picked it up solely for its Feiffer-esque front cover and the description on the back. It was Weird, grotesque, such that after I started reading it at bedtime, I had bizarre dreams inspired by book imagery, and thus banished it from the bedroom. Was it good, did I enjoy it? I’m not sure, but it was definitely compelling, and I’ll probably read his next book after some time detoxing from this one.