Go Bruins! The Bergeron, Sore Nose, Patricia Briggs Entry

My brother has a t-shirt that says, "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me" repeating several times in ever-smaller type*, and that's what went through my head as I thought about blogging tonight, and felt slight panic: "Can't blog, Bergeron's on TV!"

*I did a brief web search and found manymanymany options, none of which look exactly like his shirt. Since I don't want to buy one anyway**, I'll leave it there. If you want one, you have a lot to choose from.
**If you're shopping for me, I'd rather have a Don't Blink one, perhaps like this, which combines the Doctor Who saying with the Keep Calm trope. Or, of course, Keep Calm and Carry Yarn, like this one. Not that I'm asking you to buy me a shirt. (XL.)(Just kidding.) Moving on.

My favorite Bruin (as I've said often and often), Patrice Bergeron, was the first (I think)* subject of an NHL special called NHL 36, which follows an NHL player for 36 hours. (NHL NHL NHL!) It's on at 6:30! I have to watch!

*First I cared about, anyway. Proudly biased.

Well, wait, I then realized. I could always blog after the show, while half-watching the pre-game (the team's on the road tonight, so instead of the usual 7 o'clock start, it's at 7:30). The game tonight's not on the local station, NESN* (so it won't even be "my" guys), it's on the NBC Sports Network, the new name for Versus, which used to be the Outdoor Life Network/OLN, and who knows what they'll call it next. "NBC Sports Network" doesn't exactly flow trippingly on the tongue, does it?

*Though actually NESN still does a pre-game, so I don't have tune out the national guys for this half hour (though I'll still half tune out the locals). The game will be enough of them. I like Jack and Brick.

And what topic compels me to blog at all? Well, good question. Nothing earthshaking, really. My nose hurts, and I'm reading a good series. Let's go from ridiculous to (relatively) sublime, shall we?

Continued Less-Than-Perfect Health
Or: Achoo--Honk--Ow
My poor nose. I've taken out large bags full of trash twice since I got sick, and I swear each was three-quarters used tissues. I'm sneezing a bit today, still rather congested, and thus still extra blowing. My nose hurts.

On the other hand, I'm glad I had plenty of Puffs in the house when I got sick.

AND enough cat food! It was a close thing whether I'd have had "enough to get past the trip" or more than, and it would have sucked if I'd run out on Thursday. Or Friday. Or Saturday.

I'm also grateful that my mother spent part of last Tuesday doing some of my laundry, so I'm not all behind and searching for clean clothes this week. Thanks again!

Reading Again. Or Still. Are You Surprised?
The author is Patricia Briggs, whose work I first encountered in an anthology last fall. I picked up Down These Strange Streets (from the library, of course) based on its Charlaine Harris story, but went through to see if anyone else appealed to me, author-wise. Some stories I didn't finish, some I finished and wasn't interested enough to delve deeper into, but I liked the story by Patricia Briggs, so I got (again through the library) the first of her books in the related series. I liked it, and have now worked my way up to where the next one I get will be my last catch-up title, and I will be (gasp) reduced to waiting for her to write more. Oh, the horror! And, more practically, to trying some of her other series to see if I like them as much (happily, she has many other things to try).

This series features Mercy Thompson, an independent woman and auto mechanic who happens to be a shifter, meaning she turns into a coyote. She was raised by werewolves, so they're all over all the books, plus there are vampires in some books and fae in others (sometimes both in the same). The human characters too are plentiful and well-developed, and the relationships between all of the above are complex and real and may surprise you.

There are a lot of books out there with supernatural creatures, and while I haven't read them all I've tried more than a few. I was thinking last night that Patricia Briggs may have edged out Laurell Hamilton in my preferences; I've read Laurell's Anita Blake books for years, but as the series gets yet more violent and yet more sexual, I get yet less comfortable with reading them, and stopped buying them a few back. Mercy has much-less-detailed/graphic sex, and less-detailed and in-depth violence, which I find more to my tastes.

Also, Briggs writes well, and very ... thoughtfully, I want to say. She doesn't cut the easy corners. Mercy and her I-won't-spoil-it-for-you love interest like each other (it isn't purely physical attraction, though there's that too), and they understand each other. In the last one I read, she tries to apologize to him after something went wrong, and he points out that she wouldn't have done anything different, she had her reasons, and it didn't call for an apology. He's not happy about it, but points out that she is who she is. (What, no pointless misunderstanding?) Not that he's not upset ... he does some damage to the office, but not to her. I don't know; it felt refreshing. I like their relationship. I like that she doesn't run away from problems, but tries to address them, fix them. She's practical, and she feels real.

Even when she shifts into a coyote. No one's perfect.

Now, the game's started, so I'll leave it at that.