Talking Soup

So after the oh-so lovely blizzard on Monday, we had an utterly beautiful weekend, as in, skirt weather. Skirt-buying weather too. I am perfectly content right now, like a cat sleeping in the sun, or something.

Whee! Friday I showed The Wicker Man to Pat, and he liked it a lot. He also showed us some hilarious clips from the remake, which is nowhere near the awesome magnitude of the first one. I felt a bad about breezing in and out of his room, but Friday was also kind of a runaround day.

Also went hiking Friday. Man-o-man are the trails muddy back there, and at first I was taking it gingerly, but eventually I gave that up and just slogged along. It was so bad that some of the deer trails had actually disappeared beneath fallen trees and wind-blown branches. I also had to build a bridge across a literal creek that hadn't been there when I went last. God, I love nature. The peeper frogs were out in the marsh as well, making their noise, and I saw 7 deer I think, including a deer carcass by the marsh. Which was also pretty awesome, since how often do you get to use the word "carcass" in everyday life? Unless you're a writer, in which case it tends to come up a lot. :P

Actually I was also looking for a bear trap while I was back there. Kate had gone hiking that morning and stumbled upon some hunting ground and almost got her leg bitten off by metal death and pain. Are bear traps even legal in New York anymore? Couldn't find the trap or the hunting blinds that Kate saw, though I told myself I would spring any traps I did find. Hm, though on second thought, messing with big hairy men with guns...

Saturday was less a hectic day, since we got to sleep in, and for the most part did nothing all day but have our usual Buffy night and show Sophia some more Kodocha. Which is awesome by the way, and if we can get the correct player for ASIC, I'd recommend it for next year. Long thought it is. I spent the night reading more of Moonshine and stopped in an extraordinarily bad place to try and sleep on.

Today was another relatively hectic day. Got up "early", meaning around 11:30ish, and went to Walmart (kill me), Wegmans and then the Commons to hang up posters. Tammy (read: Tamora Pierce) is coming to the college to give a talk and sign books on the 30th, so we were advertising, though I haven't exactly been much help in this area. Julie put the whole thing together and has nearly died from the stress, bless her head. Also the whole time down there I was kind of lost in Moonshine, and just finished it a little while ago. Reading for the better part of a day--that doesn't happen often these days. Only with the best of the best, like with anything by Sarah Monette and of course with the Moonshine's predecessor, Nightlife. You might remember me practically frothing with joy at that one a year or so ago.

So, Moonshine. The gist of the series--since I now know it's a series, fuck yes!!--is two brothers, Cal and Niko. Cal is half-monster and Niko is pretty much all ninja or samurai, take your pick. The two have spent their entire lives fleeing from the monster side of the family, and in the last book, things were starting to look up for them. Though the good times never last for our dear tortured Cal and Niko, and they face things even worse in this most recent installment than the whole of the monster pack. The book is first person, narrated by Cal--angsty, snarky, a little crazy, the perfect mix of tortured bad boy. (I'm starting to think there's something a little off with me and the rest of the female gender, since we all inevitably love the tortured ones. Ask me about Felix and Mildmay and my own Kazriel). His voice is so utterly perfect. Anyone remember me talking about how awesome Mildmay's voice in Melusine and The Virtu was? Cal's is about on par, if not better for it's modernity, and therefore relatability. I think the two would get along. They could trade horror stories and snark at each other.

Robin Goodfellow, the lovable, egotistical, oh-so-awesome puck who was in the first one. Lovely George is back as well, as is lovely Promise, and there are some new faces as well. Most particularly Flay, an albino werewolf, who I liked a lot more than I thought I would. And an incredibly evil villain on par with Darkling. Abbagor was back too, the love-to-hate-him troll who lives under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ahhhhh, this was a wonderful book, with an ending that leaves you satisfied and still wanting more, particularly ( Spoilers! )

The author, Rob Thurman, is writing two more, which should come out next year and the year after and I can't fucking wait.

And, well, now I have an unbelievable amount of homework to tackle, so I should probably get to it. Or I could just procrastinate more. Why pretend? It's going to happen anyway, so I might as well admit to it. ^_^;