you care about everyone

Five things make a post!

1. Another day, another snowstorm. At least we're not Boston? *hands* I don't even know anymore. My period did show up in the middle of this morning's commute, but it (the commute, I mean) was normal and I was prepared so it was no big deal.

II. Last night, tickets for the Thursday night show of Avengers: Age of Ultron were purchased. I'm sure it will be fun, though I admit to being irritated with anything that interrupts Steve's search for Bucky (and also I am not looking forward to Wanda being Joss's designated crazy waif who kicks ass) - ( spoilers from the trailer )

C. Bar-hopping with Kyle Chandler. He needs to be in more things. *refrains from the obvious joke* Thanks to cofax7 for the link.

iv. Sarah Michelle Gellar is going to be on Star Wars Rebels. I guess it makes sense, since her husband voices the lead character. Will she be Leia? (Can you imagine getting to put Buffy Summers and Princess Leia on your resume?) Or someone else entirely? (Leia's adoptive mother? Mon Mothma? Someone we haven't met yet?) In other SWR news, apparently ( I guess technically this is a spoiler )

5. While looking for something completely different, I found a recipe for pizza chiena, a dish my grandmother and aunt used to make, which I was never able to find before because I didn't know the real name/how it was spelled (though it turns out that "pizza chiena" is actually pretty close to what they called it, which is why I clicked on the link in the first place, wondering if it was the same thing) - it's a stuffed pie filled with ham and pepperoni and sausage and ricotta. (I don't recall them ever putting hard boiled eggs in.) And that also led to a grain pie recipe that I might have to try someday. (Veniero's used to do an excellent grain pie for Easter, but I haven't had it in years; I made a version of it with rice a few years ago, but it was not a hit with other people.)

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It took me an hour and forty five minutes to get to work this morning. Thank you, MTA. (in light of that, I did stop in at Starbucks for an iced latte. Sometimes I just need an iced latte.)

And then the printer jammed the first time I tried to print something, and it still is not working.

At least my period didn't arrive during that epic commute, which I was kind of braced for, since it's a couple days late (last month, it was exactly on time, just before we boarded the cruise ship, because of course it was).

But I am so done with today. So done! And apparently tomorrow is going to be worse, since instead of 36°F and raining, it's going to be back below freezing and snowing. After raining all day today. So disgusting. I am so sick of winter. Fuck winter. I hate it so much. Give me all your 95°F days and your heatwaves. I'll even take the stifling, stinking subway over this. I mean, I prefer summer to winter anyway, but this is fucking ridiculous and I'd like to lodge a complaint.

Enough of that. On to bookish things! What I'm reading Wednesday:

What I've just finished
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, which is the first in a series of time travel novels, but I don't think I'm going to be reading the rest. The story itself is interesting (though I get the feeling this totally originated as Oxford Time Travel series AU fanfic, whether the author is actually in fandom or not), but there were some things in it that I did not like at all, which dropped it down from "I definitely liked this" to "I mostly liked this with huge caveats that make me side-eye the author a little."

( spoilers, also, cw for attempted rape and a miscarriage )

Anyway, if you can't tell, all that really soured me on the book. Thinking about it now, I wouldn't even say I mostly liked it, though there were definitely things I liked a lot, like the premise and the time travel stuff. It's all that character stuff that left me unwilling to subject myself to more. I wish goodreads allowed half or quarter stars so I could rate it properly there.

I also read The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu, which is an aliens-are-secretly-responsible-for-everything (and I do mean everything) in human history thriller. It's fun, and even though it too has lady character issues (there are only three with any major roles and one of them is as a love interest who isn't in on the secret, and ( spoiler )

at least nobody in it is threatened with rape.

It's the story of Roen Tan, an unhappy, overweight IT guy who comes into contact with Tao, an alien who reveals that the whole of human history has been the cover for a war between two alien factions, and now Roen has been drafted into that war, so he's going to have to get in shape and learn to fight. ( spoiler )

The author, Wesley Chu, is a martial artist and a gymnast, so his action scenes are kinetic and you can tell he knows what he's talking about, even if I skimmed a lot of fight description towards the end. The book has a fun comic-book feel to it, and I have hopes that the lady problem I mentioned earlier might be redressed in the next book.

What I'm reading now
Technically nothing, as I finished The Lives of Tao last night and was going to start The Deaths of Tao on my commute this morning, but see above. I did not have a chance to read on my commute this morning.

What I'm reading next
So I can actually answer this for once, based on a technicality! I am reading The Deaths of Tao next!

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In other cool news, Tom McRae has a new album coming out in May! Yay! Thanks to umadoshi for the link.

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Linetti-Boyle Wedding
( spoilers )

The Good Wife: Dark Money
( toby ziegler would not approve of spoilers )

All in all, not a great return, but I'm still glad to have the show back after such a long hiatus.

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It snowed again today, so good thing I had bacon! Snowstorms + bacon = best tradition I ever instituted. I made another pot of French onion soup yesterday, and it was just as good the second time around (I finished the last batch during the week). Also, I did not know onions had any nutritional value, but apparently they do, so go me for willingly eating a vegetable! (I still want to try one of the lemon carrot bisque recipes I found after eating it on the cruise - I never would have believed cooked carrots could taste so good, but I guess adding lemon and heavy cream helps a lot. *g*)

I also finished up Ewan McGregor's Long Way Round and Long Way Down, which I'd been watching on Netflix the last week or so. I enjoyed the scenery porn, and he's very charming, which allows the facepalmy bits to slide by a little easier.

Now I'm relaxing and catching up on some fic that was posted while I was away, and later there will be new B99 and TGW to assuage the Sunday night willies. I hope everyone else is having a nice Sunday too.

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