It's cold today, but the sun was shining all morning, actually till about ten minutes ago--then the phone let out a terrible squawk, and we have an emergency weather warning: possible snow squall with blizzard like conditions, stay off the roads (until half an hour from now). It's gotten quite dark out, the wind is picking up, but I won't believe it till I see it. It was 60F two days ago!

In other news, I haven't been around very much because we were getting our house ready for sale and boy howdy is that a lot of work. Our agent convinced us in this market we could sell "as is", which cut down on some of the aggravation of trying to get small repairs done, but it's still been just a lot of work.

Our listing went up 2/9, the agent called in all offers on 2/15, we accepted a bid and the contract is being drawn up. I wasn't ready for things to move this fast, but not only is it a seller's market, there are some conditions specific to this area that brought in a lot of serious buyers. We'll move out at the end of April. And it'll be a big move, we're going back to Illinois. More work!! But we realized at some point that we needed to do it now, while we still had the energy to pull it all together.

Oops. Another squawk from the phone just now, the warning has been extended to 3:45. And it's starting to snow. Yikes.

It's been a while since I've spent  quality time with MFU fic.   So I'm jumping on tinturtle's suggestion that we play MFU Fic Bingo in 2022.
Read one fic for each letter of the alphabet over the course of the year. One whole year! even I should be able to manage that! Imma gonna try for one a week, with a nice cushion, just in case ;)

I'll have a mix of old and a bit of new fic, probably more old than new as I go over my bookmarks and see all the things I'd like to read again.  I'm starting with the middle of the board, M, and boy there are so many ems, so many ems that look good....  what to choose, what to choose...

Well, I'm sitting here today, waiting for a snow storm, and under the circumstances, what could be more intriguing than this opening sentence:

There is an art to driving an automobile down a steep mountain slope in a blizzard that is almost impossible to acquire as a member of the Soviet Submarine Service.

We're introduced to a narrator who's relieved he can at least remember submarines because at the moment he can't really remember much else.  Including why he's driving this car down this narrow mountain road in a storm, why there's an unconscious naked man lying in the back seat, and why the big black truck behind him is trying to ram him off the road and into the valley way below.

It's exciting, it's funny at times, it has an unexpected ending, and it has something else very unusual imo:  a first person Illya voice that works.

Yes, it's     MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG by Vicky Loebel   (gen, 7800 words)

For the record: Written for NienteZero in the 2021 Down the Chimney story exchange.  First thing I've managed to finish in a while, and I was definitely out of practice.  A number of false starts and given another month or two, I might have been able to refine it to the degree that I wanted but things are what they are...  and it's readable.  The prompt was h/c slash with banter and I'm just gonna say it's h/c adjacent ;)


Title: The Floating World
Author: elmey
Genre: Slash
Characters/Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin
Word count: 1955
Warnings: nothing in particular

Summary: "Living only for the moment, savouring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking sake, and diverting oneself just in floating... like a gourd carried along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo (the Floating World)"

---Asai Ryōi

Link goes to AO3


#

Hail. We just had chunks of hail coming down. That's a first for July.
You can really hear it on the roof in a one story house. Can't hear much else though :D :D

Cats dove into their safe spaces, refuse to say when they're coming out...

What you got?



(I managed 11 posts last year, getting a late start in my effort to beat that record :D :D)

They're  making sure we'll be open for winter ;)

I planted these bleeding hearts with the help of my friend Esther the first spring we were in this house. They never fail me and it's been twenty years now.  The blue plants  in the background are Virginia bluebells which have multiplied on their own. I'm all about benign neglect in the garden, that's why I took the pic before the weeds move in  :)  (click for big version)  I think spring is here!

So it took me a while to get to day 7.  But I got there, didn't I?

Instead of tagging anyone else, if you haven't yet done this meme, consider this an open invitation to do your own 7 posts of the covers of your favorite books.

This was my inroduction to C.J. Cherryh,  They sure don't make covers like they used to :D  Again, this isn't my copy no clue where that ended up but I had this cover.

One cover per day for seven days, etc. etc.

Instead of tagging anyone else, if you haven't yet done this meme, consider this an open invitation to do your own 7 posts of the covers of your favorite books.

One cover per day for seven days, etc. etc. Slight cheat today, this is the edition I have, but it's in a box I can't get at right now, so the pic is not actually my book. As you can tell by the excellent shape it's in :D. Yeah, you knew I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut for seven days!

Instead of tagging anyone else, if you haven't yet done this meme, consider this an open invitation to do your own 7 posts of the covers of your favorite books.

gevr nominated me to post covers of seven books I love - one cover a day for a week. There is to be no explanation or review, just covers. Each time I post I will ask someone else to take up the challenge. Obviously it goes without saying that if I tag you and you don't want to it, you don't have to do it. Please do not feel obligated to join in.

That's Max there in the corner.  He's not a book, I can mention him ;)

gevr nominated me to post covers of seven books I love - one cover a day for a week. There is to be no explanation or review, just covers. Each time I post I will ask someone else to take up the challenge. Obviously it goes without saying that if I tag you and you don't want to it, you don't have to do it. Please do not feel obligated to join in.

It's not my fault.  I've had it since 1970/71.

gevr nominated me to post covers of seven books I love - one cover a day for a week. There is to be no explanation or review, just covers. Each time I post I will ask someone else to take up the challenge. Obviously it goes without saying that if I tag you and you don't want to it, you don't have to do it. Please do not feel obligated to join in.

I'm gonna do it too, even though it kills me not to SAY anything!
(but maybe I can cheat in the comments, no one said anything about the comments)
Of course these are the covers I can actually locate without turning the house upside down...

gevr nominated me to post covers of seven books I love - one cover a day for a week. There is to be no explanations or reviews, just covers. Each time I post I will ask someone else to take up the challenge. Obviously it goes without saying that if I tag you and you don't want to it, you don't have to do it. Please do not feel obligated to join in.






My victim nominee today is  eilidhsd

I should put up one post at least in the new year. Stolen from everyone and have no idea why these tidbits are interesting but here we are :D


* Tattoos: None, do not really like them

* Ever hit a deer: No
.
* Ridden in an ambulance: Yes

* Sang karaoke: Never. On purpose :D

* Ice skated: Yes, many times

* Ridden a motorcycle: As a passenger, yes

* Stayed in hospital: Yes

* Skipped school: Yes

* Last phone call : A few days ago, my brother.

* Last text from: My brother's sister-in-law, does that make her my sister-in-law too? She's nice. This AM.

* Watched someone die: No.

* Pepsi or coke: Makes no difference to me.

* Favorite Pie: Love plums, though I guess you don't see them that often in pies, love rhubarb pies.

* Favorite pizza: Put it all on there. Except fruit or green vegetables.

* Favorite season: Spring, especially when the time changes and the daylight lasts longer.

* Broken bones: Yes

* Received a ticket: Yes, no moving violations though.

* Favorite color: Blue

* Sunset or sunrise: Sunset, mainly because I'm not up for many sunrises :)

He knows what we did  on Thursday   :(

For as long as it lasts:


live cam 34 miles off the coast of Cape Fear North Carolina.

eta Link seems to not be working now.

maybe this one still works.

I just noticed that all my photobucket linked photos re-appeared both here and on ao3.

I don't think the return of photobucket has been publicized, the only article I could find is from May 2018 and it's not all that clear vis a vis their restructured services. I've neither signed up nor paid for the new service, and wonder if anyone else's pics have reappeared and for how long this will last.

I kept meaning to look for a new free third party hosting service but never quite got around to it. Did anyone find a service they liked?

Croatia 2 - England 1

It'll be fine Meany, this team was so much better than expected. And what an exciting game.