The American Way: rugged individualism within socially acceptable parameters!

1. I worked from home in the morning but did go in to work in the afternoon for a meeting. I'm feeling mostly all better but do have a bit of a lingering cough still.

2. Instagram seems to have finally fixed the issue where it was saving copies of photos I post on my phone, even if I had the settings checked so it was not supposed to do that. It was fine for years and then a few months ago just started randomly saving the photos, meaning I have to remember to delete them off my phone every time or end up with dupes of everything I post there. Googling only got me instructions to turn off the setting related to that, which was already off. I tried turning it on and off again, logging out of my account, etc. to no avail, so I just decided to live with it and the annoyance of deleting the photos, for the convenience of Instagram crossposting to facebook, though it was very tempting to just abandon my Instagram account altogether. Anyway, a few days ago it just as randomly stopped saving photos. Fingers crossed it doesn't break again, or this time I really might just give up on it, since I don't really use it much other than for posting my daily cats.

3. And with that, a daily cat:

1. Still not covid. I'll test one more time tomorrow, but I think if it's not showing anything after four days I can safely say it's a cold. Still feeling pretty good overall.

2. The farmers market had spicy watermelon fruit leather! Just one package and it was smaller than usual, but they had it. I thought it was totally gone for the season but I guess they had a little bit of watermelon left.

3. It's feeling properly like fall today. Very overcast and chilly all day. This can continue!

4. I love how pensive Molly looks. Contemplating life while enjoying the sun.

1. Still not covid. Fingers crossed it stays that way. My symptoms seem to have skipped the sinus stage and just went directly from sore throat to chest congestion, which is similar to a cold I had last year. I don't love chest congestion (always a bit worried something will lurk in there and turn into bronchitis or pneumonia) but I really hate being stuffed up, so I'm happy to not be right now. I feel fine otherwise, a little tired. Worked from home again today, though aside from a meeting this morning and answering some emails and messages, I didn't really do a lot of actual work.

2. The heat spell is over and it was very pleasant today. We took a midday walk and though the sun was bright, it wasn't too hot. A little breezy. Very nice weather for a walk.

3. We have been doing this Star Wars Halloween countdown calendar we got from Disneyland and the figures are so cute! Next year we can just put them up as decorations from the beginning, but it was fun to open one each day, ending on the 31st (there are thirteen total because spooky).

We kept them on what's left of the mantel lol (just a narrow ridge of bricks since we removed the wood). I wouldn't want to put anything delicate up there, breakable or legos or such, but these are sturdy plastic figures so even if the cats had knocked them down, they wouldn't be damaged, but no one touched them.



And a closeup:



4. I love how this yawn looks like he's frantically trying to warn someone about something.

Recently Finished
Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants: The Art of the Paperback
Found this in a neighborhood Little Library. Not much text, so it's a fast read. Mostly just pictures of old paperback book covers. It was fun to look at as something I got for free. Wouldn't buy it, though.

We Live Here Now
A woman and her husband move to an isolated old house after she's released from the hospital following a nearly fatal accident. From the beginning, there are strange goings on, but while the MC thinks the house might be haunted, her husband is convinced she's just hallucinating as a symptom of her post-sepsis syndrome. Spoiler alert: it's haunted. I think this was one of the most interesting haunted house stories I've read and I really liked the twists.

The Killings at Badger's Drift
First novel in the series the Midsomer Murders show is based on. I don't usually go for mysteries with male protags, especially policemen, but this was on a two-for-one Audible sale and I've heard go things about the show, so I decided to check it out. I like the MC all right and the mystery was interesting. Did not like that the stereotypes regarding the lone gay character, though this was published in the late 80s, so somewhat to be expected. The narrator was enjoyable. I am interested in checking out more in the series, but neither my library nor Hoopla has further audiobooks, so I'll just get book books, as I wasn't into it enough to want to spend money on it.

Chef's Secret
Most recent book in the Front Desk series of middle grade novels about a tween (now teen) Chinese-American girl who works at her family's motel. I really liked the earlier books but this one was such a disappointment. There had been little bits of romance between the MC and her male best friend in the previous couple books, but this one was not only entirely romance focused, but was from the POV of said boy, rather than the previous MC. I do not like him as a narrator and just found the romance plot of thirteen-year-olds dreadfully boring. It seems like this might be the last book in the series, but if it's not, I'll probably check out the summary/reviews before reading any further books rather than just automatically checking it out. I prefer MG over YA precisely because of the lack of romance focus (I don't mind books where the main plot is a romance, though it's not my favorite genre, but so much YA theoretically has another plot but it's actually all about choosing between two cute boys or whatever), so having it be the main plot here was a disappointment.

Yellow Stringer
This was a Hoopla bonus read or whatever they call it. Previously my library allowed you to check out six things a month with Hoopla, but recently it was cut down to four, so I assume Hoopla increased their prices or something and the library had to go down to a lower tier. Disappointing, but since I'd reached my max, I checked out the list of things you can borrow without having it count towards your total, and this was one of them. Not sure I would have checked it out otherwise. It's an English language comic done in manga style (specifically it very much reminds me of Detective Conan). A reporter for a tabloid is one of the few people who knows the articles she writes are about real supernatural events, rather than just sensational stories. Her new partner is a former cop who is sceptical until mummies start attacking them. The first several chapters are part of one longer story, and then there's a few more stand-alones. They're all just fine. It says volume one, but it's been several years and no sign of any further volumes, so it's probably abandoned. It was fine, but not something I'll bother checking up on to see if any more are ever released.

My Home Hero vol. 5-6