Kanlaon

Self has no idea why it’s taken her to p. 222 to quote from her current read, A Little Hatred: Book One of the Age of Madness (which is great; her first introduction to the work of Joe Abercrombie) It’s a little unsettling, how fast the days unspool. Can you believe it’s already the end of February? Anyhoo, the weather’s been very fine, it’s not like she has to dig herself out of a snowdrift, and it’s not even like taxes are due (not for another month, anyway), and it’s not like she’s attending AWP. But now that her county’s been bumped down to the red tier, everything feels busy, the sidewalks are full of people, the traffic’s bad, there’s no parking, and she has suddenly remembered things like doctor’s visits.

Tomorrow, for instance, she has a doctor’s appointment at 1:30. She forgot all about the doctor’s appointment until she got a text. And the text said, Feb. 28. She didn’t even know it was possible to get a visual doctor’s appointment on a Sunday. Apparently, you can. It’s an “intake” appointment. Because she signed up for Kaiser.

The last rain of the supposedly “rainy season” happened a week ago, and she’s going to have to water water water the rest of the year, and that puts a serious dent on her time. She’s tried like heck not to buy anything (cause then she has to worry about keeping it alive during the summer and fall), but she went with a friend to a plant nursery, and bought a rose (her friend, whose idea it was to go in the first place, didn’t buy anything, and didn’t even seem all that interested in the plants once we got there). Then self had to buy a trellis because the rose is a climbing rose. Then she had to get someone to help her put in the trellis. And many many hours later, here she is. Meanwhile, her friend who isn’t really interested in gardening has signed up for — of all things, a gardening class! Because she wants to meet people! And people who like plants are good people! Can’t argue with that reasoning!

The rose self bought has a very cool name:

Let’s see, what was self going to post about? Oh yes. A Little Hatred.

There are almost a hundred characters in this book. And many warring factions. At first, self was constantly having to match character with faction by looking up the helpful index at the back of the book, but that was taking away from her enjoyment of the act of reading. The minute she started really getting into this world was when she stopped referring to the index. And, just like that, characters swam effortlessly to the front of her consciousness. Characters like Rikke, who has what is called The Long Eye (meaning, the gift of sight, though all she’s seen so far is a war between a wolf and a lion), and The Young Lion Leo van Brock (Ooh, Rikke’s prediction of a war! The wolf wins, but the Lion is the victor. Try making sense of that!), and a spoiled prince named Orso, and the prince’s (secret) lover Savine, who is the richest businesswoman in Angland, the Union, the Protectorate etc etc, and a traitorous character named Vick whose sidekick is a very gauche (but maybe not as gauche as Vick thinks) young man named Tallow.

Clearly there is no point in using that quote because it will not make sense now. So she will say just one thing she learned from p. 222: The lady with the sword is the one you want to follow.

The aforementioned has been cornered by two men in a dead-end alley, but she runs through one man with a sword (Her fencing teacher would approve!), and she runs through a second while he is in the act of running away. She doesn’t kill him outright, which is a problem, because she can’t pull her sword out of his back properly, the man keeps up such a damn wriggling.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.