Tuesday evening things

 * Went ahead and bought my Amtrak tickets for Christmas. I did pay for the "insurance" this time, which might be a rip-off, but one thing COVID times has taught me is you have to be prepared to change plans on a dime, and I'd rather not lose a chunk of the cost of a roommette (which have gone up A LOT in the past year).

But it is a good feeling to know that most likely I'll get to see my mom THIS year. Even if there are weird shortages of stuff and we may have to adjust what foods we eat or how we do the tree.

* And most but not all of my Christmas shopping is done. I am ordering one book (through GRIT; it is a needleworking book) for my niece and I need to get something additional for my mom, but I'm pretty set there. And I'm pleased that I was able to get largely locally-made stuff - one of the things I'm giving my sister in law is a small vase that was made by a local artist of some (in the region at least) renown and it's in colors I know she likes. I also bought a cross pendant for her made out of horseshoe nails that a local artist made ("he's about 75 years old and is just the sweetest man" the store owner told me)

* I think I need to start looking forward to things again. One thing I have noticed about myself is that I do tend to get mired in the one-inch picture frame and I start to feel like "what is now will always be" - at least during hard times. (Strangely, I don't tend to feel that as much during good times, though perhaps that means I don't take them for granted)

* I am still reading on that Arthurian trilogy - I'm about midway through "At the Crossing Places," which is the second book in the series. I'm enjoying it - the author (who is a modern author, I didn't realize that these books were only written about 20 years ago) does work in some of the complexities and moral difficulties that prior authors might have glossed over. 

I'm also reading "Singing in the Shrouds," an Inspector Alleyn novel that I had not read before (a few weeks back I ordered some used books through Thriftbooks. I find the few bookstores around here - there's a used place in Denison, and there's the Books-a-Million - don't seem to carry many of the authors I like and certainly not the older ones). This one's set shipboard, on a voyage to Johannesburg, where there's a suspected murderer on board. (Alleyn winds up boarding at the very last minute - actually from a launch when the ship is already underway - and he is there under an assumed identity to avoid tipping off the murderer). These are enjoyable; I suppose some would find them a bit dated, but I can kind of overlook some of the things. I think I know who the murderer is but I find I read these less for the "whodunnit" than for the characters and the settings.