Monday night things

 * I am so ready for Daylight Saving to end. It's so dark when I leave home in the morning. I don't mind coming home as it's getting dark, but somehow, driving to work in the dark just feels extra unpleasant

* Possibly related to the darkness-in-morning, my street got missed for trash pickup today. I found out when I got home and went to take the wheelie bin back up, and it felt heavier than it should, so I looked in. By then it was after 5 pm but I did call and leave a message. (I said I was leaving it at the curb. I referenced my hurt knee, which really isn't hurt that much any more, but I don't know when they plan to pick up the trash and I don't want to have to keep putting it up and taking it down. Other people left their bins at the curb so I'm telling myself "they can't fine ALL of us" (technically, you can be fined for leaving your can out, though that might be after pickup, and technically it's not AFTER pickup)

* Still working on the scarf, but it's not at a very photogenic point. Same with the blanket, which I worked on during Zoom knitting this weekend. 

* I've put "All Clear" in timeout for a bit; the whole Blitz thing feels claustrophobic and too unsettling right now. Maybe I'll return to it after the election, I don't know. (Right now it really does feel like a lot of us here are holding our breath, and I don't want anything else that gives me tension). 

I did pick up "Cry, The Beloved Country," which I had been wanting to read for a while. I KNOW it will make me cry at some point; I don't think an author names a character Absalom (in a novel where the protagonist is expressly a devout Christian) without your suspecting something upsetting is going to happen. 

But at this point, very early on - Stephen Kumalo has just re-encountered his sister and suggested she return to the township to live with him and his wife - it's an interesting and enjoyable novel. In some ways the people are very different (and yet, in other ways, not, given Kumalo's faith) and the setting is different (I had to look up the latitude of Johannesburg to imagine what the climate would be like - remembering the seasons would be the reverse of here)

My favorite books do tend to be ones that show a different place and different people and a different life. But I do still need at least one character who is a decent person and is sympathetic (I assume Stephen Kumalo will be that character in this one).