New roving!

So, I did indeed go down to Springwater in Alexandria to pick up a couple more skeins of the Misti Alpaca that I'm using for my Simple Knitted Bodice. I also got 6.2 oz of Corriedale roving in a gorgeous dark navy blue:

I know: a subtle color of roving, for once. Not bright and neon. Not 5 colors that don't really go together.

Since it was a gorgeous day here in the MD/VA area (70 degrees and sunny), Alexandria was a mob scene. The apparent thought process of the Old Town pedestrians yesterday was, "Oh, a car is trying to turn? Well, I have a 'Walk' sign, and I will be taking my sweet time crossing the street. I will probably even give snotty looks to drivers while they wait for me to slowly amble my way across the street. I don't care that they have a line of traffic backed up behind them and can't move because of me being in the way. La la la." Nobody could turn because of the pedestrians who wouldn't move. I know when I see a car waiting for me to cross the street, I hustle a bit... but that's the way I roll. So, the roads were crowded, the sidewalks were crowded, and walking around there wasn't going to be a leisurely or fun activity. I decided to come home. Since I definitely wanted to do something outdoors, I went over to the airport trail and wandered around for a while. Some of the trees are starting to change colors, but things are still mostly green.

The rest of this is going to be about my geeky reading habits... consider yourself warned. :)

I don't know how a new Terry Pratchett book snuck by me, but there's apparently a new book in his Tiffany Aching series, Wintersmith. *waits patiently for the library to get copies in*

Over the summer, I was reading a lot of non-fiction (A Short History of Nearly Everything and A Walk in the Woods, both by Bill Bryson, and Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife, for starters) but now, I'm on a "whatever interesting-looking sci-fi/fantasy books cross my path" kick. Just finished the Dies the Fire alternate history trilogy by S.M. Stirling and The Necessary Beggar by Susan Palwick, and Saturday, I grabbed a copy of Celtika by Robert Holdstock. Liked Dies the Fire, could have done without The Necessary Beggar (very overwrought, everybody's depressed and anguished... I read an online review that compared it to a Lifetime movie, which I can't exactly disagree with.) Celtika could be interesting... Merlin + Finnish mythology + Jason and the Argonauts. I love Arthurian legend and I love ancient mythology, so I'm hopeful.

I also have 3 other sf/f books waiting in my mailbox at the main area branch, and a copy of Beyond Reason: 8 Great Problems That Reveal the Limits of Science by A.K. Dewdney sitting on my to-be-read shelf (plus about 20 cookbooks/knitting books/other how-to books)... so it's actually ok that I have to wait a little while for the library to get copies of Wintersmith.

You know, I stayed far away from fantasy reading for years, probably because I knew I'd go nuts with it. Having an obsessive personality is fun. :) We're all so very lucky I didn't blog during the height of my Buffy addiction.