kareina

I recently set aside my "no fiction in English" rule (which is intended to improve my Swedish by reading in that language) to read Daughter of Mystery, which was written by hrj.
( book review! I tried not to include spoilers, but only you can say if I succeded on that point. )
If you want to read a well-written and complex story in a historic setting that includes unexpectedly inheriting a fortune (one of my favorite themes, ever!) and lots of fun to read, go get a copy of this book.

I had planned to spend the weekend getting in as much progress as possible on the stack of reading my boss has given me. I have been reading, but not uni stuff. You see, blamebrampton went and talked about azkatrazathome in her journal, and I asked questions and then went and joined, so I've been happily reading the various discussions, short stories, and the tag-team longer piece of fiction in progress in between reading other stuff on LJ, Facebook and e-mail. The only progress I've made on uni reading has been while at home, since I've been leaving the computer at the office (there being no internet at home, and I'm only going home to make more food or sleep) and heading back and forth as often as necessary (it is only 0.4 km from one door to the other, though there are also a total of 5 flights of stairs between the two buildings).

I was up late last night with the above reading, which is good because it meant I was in the office at 22:30 when clovis_t called to say he'd changed his plans and was coming to Italy sooner than anticipated. When he told me he'd be here at 22:50 today, I decided I may as well stay up late last night and sleep in today, as I'd likely be up late tonight (though, of course, when I thought that it was in terms of "late tonight and sleep in tomorrow in anticipation of being up late tomorrow...).

Yesterday afternoon I went to a store which sells kitchen toys and picked up a decent steamer pot, figuring that the steaming basket would also make a decent pasta strainer, so it is a multi-purpose tool. I also got a single knife, cutting board, and spatula. Why didn't I make time to reserve one box of useful things I'd need right away and air-mail that ahead? Oh, yah, that's right--too busy trying to finish that thesis. This morning I went to the natural food store I found to pick up a couple of things I needed, and on my way out took some trash down to the cans. While there I discovered a bag next to the cans full of old beat up pots and pans and a thing for squeezing fresh orange juice. Having pretty much nothing in my kitchen, I, of course, took it. Now I've got one nice pot, and a few icky ones to use if I need more than one. They can be passed on when my stuff arrives. Which will take ages, as I'm told it is still sitting in Melbourne and hasn't been loaded onto a ship yet.

This afternoon I celebrated having a cooking pot by cooking up some lentils, rice, tofu, and the last of the fresh veg I'd purchased at the market on Monday (well, save the carrots--they will keep). It was quite nice, and there is enough to last the rest of the weekend, and I'll have the space in the fridge for Monday's fresh fruit/veg. It is now time to head off to the train station to meet clovis_t, my first house-guest since moving to Italy. I wonder who will be next?

I had been hoping to get some more work done yesterday evening after attending the wedding of some friends. Alas, it was not to be. clovis_t got a call from his mum just as food was about to be served at the after-wedding party asking us to come home and help out with an emergency in the winery. (For those of you who don't know, his dad has a small vineyard and makes wine for other small vineyards.) Apparently the very slow tiny leak on one of the large (2500 litre) tanks of wine had turned into a fast leak, meaning that all of that wine needed to be pumped out into the only tanks still empty (1000 litres each) and an empty barrel. Of course, it waited till his dad was on a Ferry heading to Melbourne before this happened, so it fell to us to deal with it. It actually turns out to be an easier process than it sounds, taking only a couple of hours to accomplish.

Once that was done I didn't quite feel like working, and, being a weekend, there weren't many new posts to the various e-mail lists, blogs, journals, etc. that I read. So, I popped over to blamebrampton's journal and read one of her stories there (Sins of the Fathers), finally finishing it at 1:30 in the morning. This is the first fiction I've read this year, and I rather enjoyed the guilty pleasure. So much so that this morning I read the part of the sequel that has been posted thus far, and look forward to seeing the rest when she gets it up there. It is now 2pm, a time of day I generally start being useful uni-work wise if I haven't gotten to it yet, so with luck this means that the rest of the day will see some real progress. It would be nice to have it done and be able to read fiction without feeling guilty about doing it...