January 19, 2023

Daily Diary, January 19, 2023 Day 870: A much better day in terms of writing, I achieved 876 words, despite it being the day I have my noon Zoom meeting, and as often happens, a phone call meeting after that meeting. I also did 30 minutes of cleaning and a 30 minute walk earlier in the day.

I've finished the Flavia mystery series audiobook, so started listening to McCaffrey's Dragon's Dawn. This is the Pern series book that is a prequel to her whole Pern series, since it talks about the first year of settlement on the planet. Its been years since I last read this, and I find it interesting the tiny echoes of this book that show up in Between Mountain and Sea, which covers similar ground through the diary entries interspersed through the book, covering the first years of settlement of New Eden. There weren't any of the disasters that the Pern settlers faced (volcanoes, thread) but there is the discovery of sentient animals (and people.)

Last night, we watched the new movie The Pale Blue Eye, that has Edgar Allan Poe as a young sleuth. Enjoyed it, and what a cast!!! In fact there have been 3 movies we have watched in a row that we really enjoyed. All very different. We rented Nope--alien/horror movie on Monday, and Tuesday a quirky 2022 movie called Vengeance, about a podcaster who goes to Texas for a story and ends up investigating a mystery. Funny, sad, insightful. Then the Poe movie.

Not sure what we will come up with tonight.

There was a bright spot of color on my walk, the blooms of a small bottlebrush plant. These, along with birds of paradise, were some of the first plants I was blown away by when we moved to southern California in the 1970s.