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So here it is: the rest of autumn spread out before us, post-Hallowe'en and pre-Christmas with (in Canada) mainly the gray blur of November in between.

(It's really just as well we have our harvest celebration in October, but as always, I do envy the placement of it between Hallowe'en and Christmas in the US just in terms of not having the stretch between seasonal holidays. [I say, as if US Thanksgiving isn't horribly fraught in so many ways.] I don't know why I have such strong feelings about this. I had them before I stumbled into wanting seasonal decor at home for more than just Christmas and started feeling all adrift in that sense at this time of year.)

(This probably isn't why some people have non-holiday decor that can be swapped in and out, thus having more options, but it's a nice side effect, I imagine. *contemplates* Please feel free to tell me about your non-Hallowe'en decor! Full-on harvest stuff is not terribly seasonal here, but surely there are other options?)

Anyway. It's noticeably cooler here now, and still bright outside rather than all gray-skewed like my mental picture of the season, but the month is young.

If there are things you love about November, please share?

Last time we ordered groceries, I got a bag of Granny Smith apples with intentions of baking, and that...uh, that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully today after I get some work done, assuming nothing horrible has happened to them. (I worry about overestimating the durability of things like apples. And cabbage. We also have a cabbage. >.> It's been around longer.)

As for what to bake...well, I have my eyes on two Smitten Kitchen cakes and two RecipeTin Eats cakes (all new to us), and there's also an a cake we made last year, or just doing baked apples or crisp. We'll see.

In cat news, the other night Sinha was being a tremendous pest to Jinksy (as is typical), and unexpectedly, Jinksy remembered (???) how to scruff him! He scruffed Sinha a couple of times a couple years ago, and it's pretty much the only thing that's ever actually made Sinha back the fuck off, but then that was it. Maybe he won't go another year or more without remembering about it again. (It's such a complicated feeling for us, because Sinha makes the most pathetic keening noises and gets really upset about it [and the other night it took an hour or so of him racing around the house grumbling to himself before he settled down, which was awkward since we were trying to sleep], so it's a bit heartbreaking, but we are absolutely in favor of Jinksy standing up for himself and saying, "NO. You will STOP.")

umadoshi

I wound up reading fourteen novels/novellas in October! Here's what I've read since my last reading check-in.

KJ Charles' The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (historical M/M) is a neat setup, where the narrator has been partnered for years with a paranormal investigator and has written famous accounts of the cases they faced, and is now much more privately writing about their personal history and the cases that instigated and shaped their romantic partnership (with, of course, many references to cases he's already written about for the public eye).

Dweller on the Threshold is my second read by Skyla Dawn Cameron, in which a woman inherits a probably-haunted house early in the covid pandemic. It's creepy and well-done and much weirder than it initially seemed likely to be (although to nowhere near the degree of weirdness that her The Taiga Ridge Murders, which I read late last year, turned out to be).

Dreadful Company (Vivian Shaw) was a quick, fun read. It's the second Dr. Greta Helsing novel, and it left me in the odd-feeling (but not uncommon for me, really) position of having enjoyed it without feeling any particular need to seek out the following books.

What Stalks the Deep is the third of T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier novellas, which due to the increasingly-horrifying prices of ebooks (in particular novellas, IMO) I borrowed from the library. OT1H, that's deeply annoying, because I generally really like Ursula Vernon's writing and would like to simply buy everything, if only to support her (and yes, I do know library borrows do contribute to that as well); OTOH, I avoided spending something like $20 on a NOVELLA and was (briefly) spared the need to decide what to read next, because when this became available at the library, it became my obvious next read once I'd finished Dreadful Company. Also, I enjoyed it; I wouldn't recommend reading it without at least reading the first book in this set, and if you've read and liked the previous ones, you'll presumably like this one too.

(Before my many-years-ago-now decision to spend a year [ha!] reading mainly/only from books I'd purchased but never read--which has pretty much been ongoing ever since, because I keep buying books--I almost never had to think about what to read next, because I had several hundred holds on hard copies at the library, and basically would just put something on hold and immediately suspend the hold for a year or two [whatever the maximum was], and then frequently scroll through the list and re-suspend books if I caught them in the window between them being automatically unsuspended and actually heading my way. Whatever books I didn't catch in that window arrived for borrowing at the library, so I'd pick them up and read them, whatever they were.)

Also

scruloose and I finished Fugitive Telemetry, although it took us long enough that I had to check it out from the library a second time (which I'd rather avoid, given my understanding of how ridiculous the ebook/audiobook situation is for libraries >.<). When we circle back to listen to the first novel, we'll definitely have to be ready to actively focus on finding time for it.

Current reading/watching: I'm a few chapters into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (V.E. Schwab), and on the non-fiction front, a little ways into Anne Lamott's Almost Everything: Notes on Hope.

Meanwhile,

scruloose and I are two episodes into season 2 of Silo.

umadoshi

After an embarrassingly long time of sporadically reminding myself that I specifically bought a tiny low-powered laptop explicitly for use down in the living room (and used her accordingly for a while, until the spring Dayjob crunch threw me out of the still-forming habit), I've finally got Haruna up and running again. Will this help me leave fewer tabs open, or just result in them being split among more places?

Happy Hallowe'en and blessed Samhain, as applicable! It's a quiet one here. The wind and rain were wild for much of the day, but did calm down in the late afternoon, as hoped. Reports from online locals indicate that a lot of people got way fewer trick-or-treaters than usual (if any), although some spots seemed to get normal levels.

We don't really know what our neighborhood "normal" is, either in the area in general or along our condo corp's road, since for the last few years we've just been setting out the candy and refilling as needed. Some or most of it has generally vanished, but that doesn't say much about numbers vs. the likelihood that at least a few kids take it by the fistful. But tonight

scruloose decided to actually answer the door and hand it out (in a hazmat suit, because why not?) and not a single kid came by during the window of time when they were down there. (That said, they got down there somewhat later than would probably have been ideal, and the doorbell did ring once before that point [and go unanswered, but all of our lights were off until

scruloose was ready]. So if we try it again next year, earlier might make a bit of difference.)

I've mostly been chilling on the main level with the cats, who've been barred from the ground floor for the evening. (We had the window open during that span of time when more kids might've been on the move out there, but I heard only the occasional young voice echoing over from the main road.) After finishing up at Dayjob for the day, I put on my Hallowe'en onesie, and

scruloose made the first hot cocoa of the season, and we finally finished listening to Fugitive Telemetry before dinner was made and

scruloose bagged up candy. (;_;)

I hope you're all having a fun/peaceful time of it.

umadoshi

I keep forgetting to share this link snagged from Bluesky a week or so ago: "Starbucks didn’t invent them. But it’s possible that Tori Amos or a Midwest grandma did".

The leaves are well and truly coming down now. There are still plenty on some trees--browning and crumpling--but the ground is drifted with them. (One of the downsides of having the outdoor spaces around the condo handled by a company: the leaves will probably all get gathered/raked/blown, rather than being left for winter habitat for critters. >.<)

We've had a few spots of rain in the last week or so, although nothing really major...and now we have a special weather statement for rain and strong winds on Hallowe'en. The timing. Possibly it'll clear up (or at least ease up) enough that trick or treating won't be miserable. (There are local social media reports of seeing parents demanding that Hallowe'en be rescheduled, but most people I actually know are cheerfully reminiscing about snowsuits and raincoats always being part of their costumes as kids.)

Our approach for the last couple years, at least, has been to simply leave out a bowl of treats and check on/refill it periodically, which will be much more feasible if the wind isn't threatening to simply blow it away. :/ (This year I was annoyingly sensible and said we should make sure to get treat offerings that I actively don't want, because blood sugar, etc. So we've done that.)

Current Mood: listless

umadoshi

It was pouring rain when I woke up, and again, even if it didn't last long enough--I don't know what time it started, but it was pretty much gone by midmorning--it was appreciated. (Of course, I say that as someone working from home; one coworder who works onsite sometimes is in walking distance of the office, and walking to work today resulted in literally wringing clothing out in the kitchen sink upon arrival.)

That also meant it was dim enough at the start of my workday that turning on both strings of Hallowe'en lights in my office made actual sense! The purple/orange string around the edge of the ceiling is bright enough to be fun regardless, but the new string of ghosts around the window is backlit enough that actually turning the lights on makes little sense during the day. (And these years I spend so little evening time in my office, Dayjob crunches notwithstanding.)

I checked in on my freelance schedule yesterday and found out that things have been rearranged in a way that makes the rest of this month and November pretty light, early December a bit much (although some of the work due then can be done in November, theoretically), and January a bit of an onslaught. It should be fine! Just. Ooof. (At least January isn't a typical crunch time, although anything's possible.) This also gives me a bit more motivation to extend my vacation time after Christmas.

At some point today Pokemon Go rolled out its seasonal Hallowe'en skin, which inevitably charms me all out of proportion.

There were other things in my head this morning, but of course the Dayjob workday quietly wiped them away, so we'll call this a post.

Current Mood: tired

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So. November. (Holidays etc. | Cake? | Cat interpersonal dynamics)

Reading (back)log

Hallowe'en

Seasonal things, mostly

A smattering of small things

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November 2025

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