Chilly Nights, Tea, Books...aah.

We are finally getting a bit of normal Central Florida winter. A major storm came through on Saturday night, with serious tornado damage in the southwest part of the state. We had wind and heavy, heavy rain. I slept through it. I woke to hear the last drizzles fizzle out, and saw the damage left behind, which wasn't too serious in my neighborhood - a lot of small branches and leaves covered the roads, and the normally dry drainage areas were small lakes. It takes a lot of rain to fill them, I'm amazed that I slept through it!

Today's high won't crack 60 degrees, which is actually a few degrees cooler than average. Nature has been having some major mood swings lately. But it's January, and it's nice to actually put on a sweater and curl up with knitting and a book. I just finished the audiobook of The Martian and I was blown away. I know the movie got rave reviews and Oscar nominations, but I am still old school enough to want to read the book first (I count audiobooks as reading, thankyouverymuch). The audio version was excellent and very hard to turn off. A gripping, intelligent story with a surprising amount of humor - if you've avoided it because it sounded too intense, give it a try. It definitely is intense but leavened with a lot of dry humor - the astronaut is a funny guy.

So that was my one audio credit for the month, and now I'm back to cheap finds for my Kindle. I'm hooked on a new-to-me mystery series: The Coroner's Lunch. Again, a mystery series set in Laos in 1975, and the protagonist is a septuagenarian doctor turned very reluctant coroner, a pragmatic scientist with an unnerving tendency to be visited by the people he autopsies? Huh? I'm not sure what motivated me to try the first book in the series - I think it was a freebie at the time - but I'm so glad I did. From the setting to the characters to the droll humor of the glorious Communist takeover of Laos, it's definitely different.

In other news - Sophie's runny poop came back again, and she's back on metronidazole, a heavier dose and in liquid form this time. She acts fine - she's playful and eating and demanding snacks - but her pooping is definitely not okay, so let's hope that this time we get results. Otherwise, it'll be time for a round of expensive lab tests and God-knows-what after that. I really would like to go six months without a big vet bill, just to see what that's like. Oy.

I didn't win the lottery and another work week looms ahead. January is more than half over, and I'd give myself no more than a C+ on my accomplishments for the month. My nasty head cold really knocked me down for several days, but I'm human again. I think there's still time to pull it up to a B. 10K steps a day and unroll that damn yoga mat. I can. I will.


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