In fact, I own two of them! I purchased a random LEGO Harry Potter minifigure from ebay, and it also wound up being this: Professor Sprout with mandrake. How cute is that?

It is, of course, all about the mandrake. Because I love absurdity. AND I just discovered that there is also a Sirius Black minifigure with ball and chain! Ahahahahaha!

After our random winter day last week (53^o), we're now having more springlike weather. A little TOO springlike—Saturday's high is supposed to be 76^o, which is awfully warm for the end of February. It makes me worry that the summer temps will come early, like in March or April. Please, no!

I finished Station Eternity recently, which was a fun read. It's a combination of comedy, mystery, and sci-fi. The main character is a young woman with an uncanny gift for solving murder mysteries, who notices that a LOT of those murders involve people who are somehow connected to her. She pleads with a sentient space station to grant her refuge, so she can get away from humanity and stop triggering more murders. There are only two other humans on the space station with her... until the station decides to invite a human contingent for a visit. More murder ensues!

I also finished T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver, which is kind of a desert-based light fantasy with loose ties to the Snow White fairy tale. The main character is a poison expert, which is unusual. An enjoyable read over all. Someday, I'll get around to reading The Raven and the Reindeer, which I forgot I bought on Kindle at some point. This is good, as our county library still refuses to buy the digital version of it.

This weekend: I'll be building the coffee table, gathering some more items for Goodwill, and I might finish my pseudo-LEGO mini-brick Starry Night set! \o/

Burning Bridges (4823 words) by dreamlittleyo
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ted Lasso/Jamie Tartt
Additional Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Angst, Bad Decisions, First Time, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Non-Consensual Kissing, Processing Emotions (Badly) Through Sex, Jamie Tartt Has No Idea What He Wants, And Fuck Knows What Ted Is Thinking

Summary: After the final game of the season, Jamie has a lot of confusing feelings about the note from his former coach. Maybe confronting Ted will help, if only Jamie can figure out what the hell he wants to say.

Read on AO3...

( Or read below the cut... )

 

You've probably heard of "theater of the absurd." Well, someone has extended that idea into an anti-Trump opera. With Vampires. And other weirdness. All in German:



And yes, I would totally go see that!

I took the books to the library this weekend, and our bonus room has space in it again! There are a couple of boxes and bags in there with stuff to take to Goodwill (we seem to always have a running box for that), but all the books are gone now. Huzzah!

This was a weekend in which I actually got some things done. In addition to getting those books out, I cleaned up an office chair that I need to sell, and I assembled a couple of end tables I bought from Overstock last week. They were easy to put together, and they look pretty nice. But it took almost as long to get all of the tape off the boxes (for recycling) and break up the styrofoam they shipped with! I really wish styrofoam was recyclable. :(

While working on the end-tables, I started watching Euphoria on Hulu. This was mainly because someone recommended Eric Dane's performance in it (sadly, he passed away this weekend from ALS), and it also has Jacob Elordi. It's a high-school-age drama, and really well-written, though the kids lives are messy. It's full of things you would really hope teenagers aren't doing. It's also much more sexually explicit than I would like, especially given the age of the characters. I realize all the actors are in their 20s, but they're supposed to be kids, so it's kind of skeevy on top of being TMI. But I will say that Jacob Elordi was gorgeous even in his early 20s, and looked much the same as he does now. This isn't always true, especially for men— Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and even Mel Gibson weren't really good-looking until after about age 30. For some, it's needing to lose a little of the baby fat that makes their faces less distinctive. For Gregory Peck, I think most of it was needing to put on about 20 pounds!

We also watched Sinners, which we enjoyed but I wouldn't consider Oscar-worthy— mainly because of the vampires! The period detail was really good, though, and Michael B. Jordan (as twins) lived up to all the reasons I have a weakness for him. :)

Next weekend: the coffee table I also bought last week. \o/

I've mentioned HalfshellHusband's book collection before, and how the sheer quantity of books daunts me (in terms of storage or future moving). Well, last week he got to thinking about what might happen if we had to someday move to be closer to the kids, or what I would have to deal with if he passed away. My father, for example, had hundreds of leather-bound classics that my sister is now struggling to find homes for. So, HSH suddenly decided to go through all his books and purge the paperbacks that are easily available on Kindle and any books he honestly will never read again. That means about 50-70 books are on their way to Goodwill or the library!

We had already cleared everything out of the two 6 1/2 foot bookcases we just sold (picked up today), and almost everything we have left fits in the built-in double-bookcase in the sunroom, with a little room left over for our DVDs. That just leaves the CD collection, and he found places for those. This is in addition to the two 6-foot bookcases in the garage that we need to sell. This is a much more manageable number of books! I feel like I can breathe now. Although I bought a replacement bookshelf from Home Depot back in the Fall (with the intent of getting a twin that now seems to be unavailable). I don't think I even need it, and it's never been opened. Wonder if I can return it (months later)?

In TV news, we finished S2 of The Night Manager. What a shocker of an ending! Overall, I was most intrigued by Teddy's character this season, who was cool, volatile, lethal, and vulnerable all at once. Very complex, with a great performance by Diego Calva. It haunts me even now. Not sure when S3 is coming out, but at least it won't be 10 more years...

We are also in the middle of watching Amazon's Heads of State, after resisting for months because it just looked too stupid. It is MUCH better than we expected, when all we really expected was mindless fun. I had thought John Cena was horribly miscast, but he's making it work. Who knew?

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