Book completed

Rex Regis, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Imager Portfolio #8, internal chronology #5. In this one, Quaeryt and his wife and friends have to tie up all the loose ends, so that her brother is ruling a unified continent and he can start his school for imagers - people with a psychic power to create and destroy material objects, who have up to this point been feared and persecuted. Quaeryt is such a nice character, and it's a good story. It's also amusing how he gently bosses around his brother-in-law the king, who finds him exasperating but inevitably right.

That problem house; Xicha date night

This past week, I've noticed that the problem house on our street has been stripped down to its barest bones - the thinnest boards of walls, the floor of the house elevated above the dirt, and sometimes no floor at all. Bits and pieces of the house are lying on the dry brown grass, and there's a sign in the grass too, saying "Qazaq Construction." I wondered what had induced that owner to start doing real work to the house, since she'd balked so far. In fact, last week I'd seen a very scruffy older woman and man who appeared to be salvaging junk from the house, objects of no value whatsoever except to themselves, certainly no one's personal effects. I figured she was that irrational owner, with a man to help.

Anyway, today I saw my next-door neighbor outside, the one who'd been so heroic about getting the squatters thrown out, and I asked her what was up. The house has been sold, to a neighbor, and the neighbor had hired the construction team to repair the house! What a relief! The trap house saga is concluded!

Our friend and realtor, Susan, invited us to visit her new office today, as she was having an open house party, so we went there right when it started at 5 pm, ate a few snacks, and chatted a bit with her. Soon many others arrived! J and I then took our leave and went to try out the new Mexican restaurant next door: Xicha. J had "sanguiche cubano," a Cuban-style pulled pork sandwich. I had "tacos barbacoa," which were shredded beef tacos. We also tried a "spicy tamarind margarita," which was not great - we would probably have liked it more without all of the sliced pepper slices. J's sandwich came with "patatas bravas," potato pieces seasoned with paprika salt, which I ate eagerly. I did make multiple additions to my "plants eaten in 2024" - radish, tamarind, agave, whichever type of sliced pepper, and perhaps also the pepper for the paprika. After dinner, we rushed home to watch the conclusion of the three-part Dinotopia miniseries. A fun date night!