badly_knitted's Fluff Emporium

Pandemic life
Following the closure of our favourite and the temporary closure of another, our replacement "outdoor" cafe seems to be the one at the garden centre, which is great in terms of menu, but only outdoors on a technicality. There is courtyard seating, but the garden centre is covered with a high hangar-like ceiling that's open at the sides. We're heading into winter; it'll have to do for now.

Previous poll review
In the Siblings poll, 41.2% of respondents are the oldest among their siblings, 23.5% are the youngest, and 13.7% are in the middle (including me: 我有一个妹妹和两个哥哥). Only children make up 21.6% of respondents, and 5.9% said it's complicated. In ticky-boxes, giant pandas on penny-farthings and electric eel electricians tied for second place (37.3%), and hugs won with 76.5%. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
I've fallen shamefully out of the reading habit, so just an hour or two of Cetaganda (Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner). I remember staying up all night reading in my twenties. What has happened to me? Clearly I need to get my Chinese to the point where I can read beginner-level graded readers, and then two birds, one stone.

Kdramas
I have two episodes to go in To My Beloved Thief, and I'm super enjoying it. More Miraculous Brothers tonight. I need to excavate my exercise machine so I can watch ep 14 of Absolute Value of Romance.

Other TV
Finished The Burroughs, which was fine. If anyone has thoughts about the ending, I'd be interested.

Watched some Night Train with Wyatt Cenac episodes on Youtube (Brooklyn-based standup sets, very chill). (I believe this was made for a network but not picked up, so they just uploaded it all to YT.)

An episode of White Collar with my sister; some HowTown videos.

Conclave, a pope-election movie with Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, et al. I was lukewarm about watching this but very glad I did. Tense complicated politics, and a satisfying outcome. Would rec.

Audio entertainment
You Can Learn Chinese (1 or 2 eps), a couple dozen Chinese Pod newbie lessons (most multiple times), and a little bit of Sinica Podcast. Also, Writing Excuses, Cross Party Lines, and Dreaming Against the Machine.

Writing/making things
Still plugging away at my flashfic. I have three days to finish it if I want to post it in the current "Late" round at fan_flashworks. Zero confidence I can knuckle down to make that happen, but never mind, there's always amnesty.

Life/health/mental state things
We borrowed a friend's EV and drove up the coast to see my parents last weekend. Lovely weather, guilt-free driving, pleasant lunch. I had been nervous about my parents moving closer, but it's turning out fine so far.

I bought a new pillow, and it's only been three nights, but my neck is so much better. No more middle-of-the-night owwwws. Such a relief! And that's meant I've been able to take some longish bike rides.

A new bike path, Te Ara Tupua, opened north of the city, and it's lovely. I rode halfway along it and back (didn't allow enough time), and it was teeming with pedestrians and cyclists, with the sea right there, all blue and sparkling. It'll be interesting to see what it's like in bad weather, but in the meantime, magic.

House
My Ikea shelves arrived, my sister helped me construct and install them, and now I feel like maybe I have too much storage? Ha. This is because I'm looking at a lot of my things, going, I could just toss that. Anyway, the stuff that was in my wardrobe where the shelves now are is currently exploded all over the room, so I have to sort it out quickly. I bought some S-hooks for my panniers (I now have one blue pannier and one orange: Bluey and Bingo!! Andrew has their counterparts and said they must be Chilli and Bandit. /in-joke for aficionados of children's TV). I just need more boxes/cubes/whatever to sort things into, and to turn some of the built-in bookcases in my living-room into pseudo-drawers. I may have spent rather too much time this week browsing Ikea and hardware store websites.

Language Learning
( Cut to spare your reading page. )

Link dump
What do other animals think of human music? by Howtown (Youtube, 32:09).

Good things
我的猫很好。Autumn/winter sunshine. Biking. EVs. New pillow, new shelves. 520 Day (omg, I really need to make time to revel in the collection!). Guardian and the rewatch, and getting distracted by familiar characters like "this" and "not", lol. Dreamwidth. Going to an art show in a sec. Hi!! *waves*