Cav's Place

The 19 years that passed since I read the first book were a serious reason for concern, so it was a relief that the fact that readers were likely to need a lot of reminders was fully taken into consideration. Not that it’s surprising, considering the 28 years that passed between the respective release dates, but I want to point out that I never felt lost or that I was missing anything important while reading this. And those reminders aren’t forced, generally fitting quite well into a story that expands and improves upon that of the first book while also offering some explanations that were initially lacking.
Then again, that’s not hard at all, seeing as I was calling The Mummy as “the worst book by Anne Rice, except of course the “Sleeping Beauty” series“. And I must say that The Passion of Cleopatra also fails to meet my expectations of a book by Anne Rice, feeling like it tries at various moments to reach for that “magic” but keeps falling short or going off the mark, and while the fact that she wrote it with her son may also have something to do with that, the problems are likely deeper, having to do with the source material and the fact that this “species” of immortals and their world just don’t fit Anne Rice’s style and she never developed them quite enough. It has its good moments and, other than a couple of obvious continuity errors that were actually very close together, I wasn’t actually bothered by anything specific, actually being surprised that I didn’t dislike the characters this time around, which is unusual for me in general, but overall it’s just a decent way to pass some time.

Rating: 3/5

The danger was real, but in the end things turned out as close to well as possible over here, with Nicusor Dan winning the presidential election. And he actually did so more clearly than I expected… Or, more exactly, more clearly than I thought possible, because I wasn’t certain that he was going to win, and if he did I expected it to be by 5% at the very best, and others from the “old guard” of activists were at least as worried, some even more so. But at the time I’m writing this, with over 98% of precincts counted, the difference is about 8.5%, and while there are plenty of votes from abroad left to count and Simion is winning there, a difference of at least 8% seems quite certain. And what’s interesting is that this is exactly what the exit polls said, while so far they were way off.
Now the next question is what’s going to happen with Bucharest, since we’ll need a new mayor here and the position is under serious threat from PSD. And then, of course, there is the fact that Nicusor Dan is a right-leaning centrist without a particular vision or ideology other than being a strict follower of rules and regulations, a fighter against corruption and those who flaunt the law, and unfortunately a supporter of the current economic system and of the private over the public sector, so most definitely not a leftist or progressive, and only an environmentalist in the loosest sense, usually going only as far as ensuring that the current regulations in the field are respected. And his expertise is Bucharest, and in particular fighting against those who go against building regulations, which he had been doing for over a decade before becoming mayor, which won’t really matter as president. On the other hand, in his time as mayor he did have to deal with a disastrous budget situation and a split Council, with a majority that was often hostile, and has some notable achievements under those circumstances, which do prove skills that he will need in his new position. But the president’s main attributes have to do with external affairs and security matters, and on those topics he seems to be coming from the right place, more or less, but his skills remain to be proven.
But all of that, as well as any questions about when will people elect some who do adhere to the values and ideology that are so desperately needed and how long can we still afford to wait for that moment, if at all, are for tomorrow and the days after. This moment, this night, is a time of relief. Not celebration, not happiness, maybe not even so much of true hope for an actually good future, but definitely relief. The disaster that’d have been Simion becoming president was averted and, especially considering the difference, the mainstream politicians will also see that the wind doesn’t blow from that direction, or at least not anymore, and most probably fall in line at least to Nicusor’s level. And, for the moment, that’s the best that could have been realistically hoped for.

Last year I was saying that it was easy to boycott Eurovision, since Romania wasn’t participating or broadcasting on TV and watching live on-line wouldn’t have been feasible when I had to get ready for that year’s half marathon, which was taking place the following morning. And the lack of participation or TV broadcast remains true this year, but the competition taking place a week later means that I could have watched it live on-line. But, of course, I still won’t, and I also still won’t write what used to be my usual posts, since the reason for the boycott, the fact that Israel continues to be allowed to participate despite the continuing war crimes, ethnic cleansing and undoubtedly genocidal actions against Palestinians, remains valid, in fact being even more so than last year. And, with the plan to conquer and destroy Gaza having now been approved and openly announced, the situation is certain to only worsen even further.
There are opinions stating that the EBU has a mission to protect public broadcasters, especially when they’re in conflict with the authorities and in danger, as is the case even now in Israel, so they feel that they must continue to support the broadcaster, possibly even taking it as an act against the government, at least as long as the sort of ultimatums that resulted in banning Russia and Belarus won’t be put forward by the other participants… And the fact that those ultimatums still don’t exist is a major problem in itself, but I definitely won’t take any of it as a suitable explanation. Well, not unless the Israeli entry would be one that actually would criticize the government’s actions and/or support Palestinians, at least in some roundabout way that’d pass the competition’s censorship rules. And that’s definitely not the case, in fact quite the contrary, or at least that’s what I gathered.
Either way, I want to mention that FalastinVision is taking place this year as well, and while I still won’t actually watch it, I will once again replace my usual posts about Eurovision with one about that, which I’ll probably write next week, after listening to all of the songs properly, since so far I only listened to the four that didn’t make it into the final… And I must say that, with one possible exception, I wonder why they didn’t make it, and I’m quite sure that I’ll be baffled by quite a number of the finalists being there instead of them. Not that it makes that much sense to even leave so few songs out at all, so I wonder why didn’t they just let all of them compete all the way to the end. But, out of those four, I really want to point out The Liveless Life, which struck me as particularly good, and the heartbreaking story behind it should have also counted for something…

Since the half marathon was today, I’ll just mention that I completed it with an official time of 1:49:13 and a net time of 1:48:25, which is disappointing but actually a fair bit less bad than I feared after the recent runs, and in particular after the one that this post is about, and then move on to May 5, when it was almost 4:10 PM when I got up, and I just stayed on the computer until just before 5 PM, after which I pretty much stayed in the kitchen, deciding to make the pasta that day after all, though it was close to 8 PM when I actually started working on that and 11:50 PM when I started eating some of it as lunch while I spent a little more time on-line. And at 12:20 AM I went back to the kitchen, dealing with a few more things, including making the tea for the morning, while making dinner, which I ate between 2:50 AM and 3:20 AM. And then I put the cereals and the baked almonds with Himalayan salt in a bowl, which I placed in the fridge, just leaving the yogurt to add in the morning, brushed my teeth for the only time that day, which hadn’t happened in a very long time, and also shaved, even if my brush was still falling apart, since I couldn’t find where dad had thrown the glue after taking it from where I knew it was and out of its packaging, which was left there but empty. Either way, I ended up getting in bed at 4:20 AM… And a few minutes later I realized that the pasta was still on the balcony, so I got up to put the pot in the fridge.
It took me a little while to fall asleep, but not too long, and while I woke up to pee at one point, I got back to sleep right away after that, getting up when the alarm rang, at 8 AM. Then I had the usual stuff, with the sweet thing being an expired energy bar, with added bio (organic) honey, took most of the supplements, adding that additional one, though I don’t think that it makes a difference, but forgetting about the one with magnesium and potassium at that point, then actually left something in the toilet, and walked out at 9:45 AM, wearing the full running gear, with the slip of paper with the emergency information in the pocket of my tights. The temperature was about 15°C at 10 AM, holding steady at the other two stations, but increasing to 18°C at the one inside the city at 11 AM.
The time was 49:37.01, with sector times of 4:09.85, 5:20 (5:19.44), 6:13.41, 4:46 (4:45.37), 5:19.75, 6:07 (6:06.44), 4:33.44, 5:14 (5:13.90), 6:03.38 and 1:53 (1:52.03), making for lap times of 15:42.70, 16:12 (16:11.56) and 15:50.72. I pushed really hard on the first sector, but while I was pleased with that time in itself, I knew that I had pretty much exhausted myself and my chances of getting back under 48 minutes were pretty much gone because of it. Still, after trying to recover to some extent on the following sector, I hoped to cover sector three in less than six minutes, so when I saw that I even went well over 6:10 it was clear that even staying under 50 minutes was going to prove difficult, and sector one of lap two made it seem that my chances of doing so were likely to go away even by the end of that lap. So I tried to gradually put more effort into it once again, and after lap two I thought that I might just make it while also considering continuing to 16 km if I won’t be safe at the end of lap three. But that’d have just meant exhausting myself even more for no reason, since the time was obviously going to be just awful, so I pushed more from the start of lap three, which resulted in feeling pretty safe after two sectors, while at the end of the lap the target became to get under 49:40, so I gave everything I had left on the final sector and managed that… But that’s obviously an awful time, and if I’m to compare it to the other morning runs done on the week of a race, it marks one more time when I’m the slowest I’ve been since before the hospitalization, in 2021. And pushing on the first sector is far from enough of an excuse for that, as I proved as recently as on February 14.
On top of being so exhausted after that first sector, I felt that I really had to snap my back even before starting to run and couldn’t, which resulted in quite a lot of reflected pain, mainly in my chest and abdomen, that I had to just deal with. But at least that slow pace spared my legs to a fair extent, those warnings from my right knee only appearing on sector three of lap three. On the other hand, there were some gusts of wind that I had to fight against, most notably at the start of each sector three, but for the first half of the run, while it was cloudy, there were some other windy areas as well, the wind dying down when it got sunny, except in that area. But the only notable problem caused by people was on sector two of lap two, and even that just meant slowing a little in order to make my way through a group, while the fact that I stepped in a hole that was under the lane on the following sector was just jarring. So the real problem was that I just couldn’t go faster…

After jogging back, I decided to turn the old computer back on and install the updates for Windows 10 on it, to test them, doing the day’s squats at some point while I was waiting, and then I also tried to get Windows 7 to work properly again on it, but I couldn’t, even after uninstalling BOINC, which I thought might trigger that conflict with Emsisoft Anti-Malware that causes that error, and deleting dad’s user account, since that error had reappeared when I created his account, so I eventually gave up, switched back to this computer and installed the April updates on it as well while eating lunch, everything seeming fine at that point.
After changing, I left again when it was almost 4:50 PM, with the plastic and metal, which I dropped off in a recycling bin on the way, and the recyclables with the deposit symbol, which I took to the store that I had noticed two days earlier offered 20% more for them, just cashing in that voucher after all of them were accepted by the machine. And the offer will continue until the end of July, but while I asked for that to be confirmed even if it was written on the sign, I couldn’t get myself to ask whether it was just something that they were offering at that particular location or it was in all locations, since I had used a route that took me past another one before reaching that one and I hadn’t seen any such sign there. Either way, it’s frustrating that I only noticed this two days before, and even then forgot about it by the time I got back and ended up putting what I had gathered into the machine from this Mega Image, so I don’t know when they started doing this, but I could have gained quite a lot if I’d have known earlier.
Either way, since it was the last day when some cat food that my mother sometimes gives to her cats was supposed to be on sale at Supeco and I also had dad’s metro card and could then go anywhere else, I decided to walk there, picking up a few more recyclables on the way and putting them in a cabinet when I got there. However, there was no sign indicating the three for the price of two deal for that cat food, and it was an unhealthy kind anyway, and I found plenty of other cheap things to get, so I eventually gave up on that cat food and bought plenty of those other things, an expiring bread for dad, plus the last 200g bag of raw almonds for myself, which cost a fair bit but I thought that it was still a little cheaper than elsewhere, though I later found that they had the same price at Carrefour… Either way, I also stole another expiring bread for dad, the cheapest one left in the pile, unsliced and actually already expired the previous day, the price being just a little more than what I had to recover from them after a discount listed at the shelf didn’t apply just over a year ago. So, between carefully looking all over the store to spot those great prices, calculating just how much to get, and figuring out both how to carry everything and how to make it so that bread will be unlikely to be noticed, I spent quite a lot of time there, and then I needed some more to arrange the purchases before retrieving those recyclables from the cabinet and walking away, picking up some more as I made my way to the metro station, took the metro to Obor and went to that Carrefour.
Actually, after putting everything in a cabinet, I found two more recyclables on my way to the bathroom, picking them up before peeing and washing my hands and then rearranging everything I had in that cabinet in order to add them. Then I checked the expiring products, grabbing two. There was quite a pile of those fluffy flatbreads as well, but while they supposedly expired the next day, there were spots of mold on every single one already, so I didn’t take any, and while I also found one of those pumpkin pies in the cart with bakery products, it had no discount label… And most of the other discount labels were pretty much wiped because of the grease, which I pointed out to the employee who was wiping the refrigerated expired products, but nothing was done about it even by the time I got back there, after going to the bakery area, seeing that they were making the discounts there as well and grabbing the last of those apple pastries that was left and two breads that were also discounted that time around. But at least I sorted out the issue with that pumpkin pie, since the regular label that was on it was from May 5 and I still wanted it, so when I got back there I took it and then showed it to one of the bakery employees, who printed a new discount label for it and told me to wander around for a couple of minutes before checking out, so it’ll show up in the system. So I did that, and it worked.
After retrieving what I had in the cabinet and arranging everything, I put everything back in a cabinet when I got to Kaufland, entering the store at 9:25 PM and seeing that the evening discounts increased sharply a little later, so if I was initially wondering about taking one lettuce with root, I ended up taking two, plus a pack of four bio (organic) apples, even if those were imported. On the other hand, the fact that those were also imported made me not take any carrots, even if those also had a great discount and I’d have normally wanted some. Either way, I also grabbed a few slices of a meat product that I found among the expiring ones, plus two of those cheap yogurts and some olives that also had a discount, being charged for the box that they were placed in. And I was just about to start using the self-checkout when the closing announcement came, but after retrieving what I had in the cabinet I still took my time to arrange everything, walking out when it was almost 10:15 PM. And then I took the metro back, picking up some more recyclables on the way to and from the metro station.
It was almost 10:55 PM when I got back, with 17.5 kg. Then I put most of the purchases in their place, only then noticing that those few slices of that meat product which I had grabbed looked rather suspicious, ate one of the apples that I already had and some salty snacks, and it was past 12:45 AM when I went to wash and almost 1:25 AM when I was done, but then I spent a little time on the computer, so it was almost 15 more minutes before I got back to the kitchen. And then I washed what was there, ate that pumpkin pie, sliced dad’s unsliced bread and put both in the freezer, also dealt with one of mine, moved something into a jar, and used some of the lettuce for the salad, finally eating dinner between 4:30 AM and 5:10 AM and getting in bed at 6:35 AM, after noticing a .NET error stating that PowerChute was terminated because of an unhandled exception shortly after rebooting. And, on a different note, I found three warnings that my display driver had stopped responding and then recovered on the morning of May 4, which I hadn’t noticed until then, and I didn’t think that I was at the computer at that point… Though when I investigated further, after getting up, I saw that I opened Vivaldi a couple of minutes after the last such warning, so I wonder whether I had done something before as well and forgot or something else had happened. Either way, PowerChute seems to still work, and I didn’t see any of these events again since then. And I’ll also mention here that in the evening I made mamaliga, “cheating” in order to be able to say that I started eating in my room before 3 AM, but actually starting when it was past 3:15 AM. If I wouldn’t have looked something up on-line, I might have managed to finish at 3:40 AM even so, after really gulping it down as that hour approached, but as it was, I finished at 3:43 AM. And I got in bed at 5:25 AM.

It took me far too long to read this book, and while my eyes having a hard time with the font, even more so when large sections were mostly or even almost entirely in italics, had something to do with it, the main reason is the complexity coupled with the time that passed since I read the other two in the series. Then again, I doubt that this series can be properly understood without rereading, and possibly not even then, and I never do that, so I’ll just say that the improvements from one book to the next are huge and this last one keeps only the best elements and shows just how much thought and planning went into it all. Worldbuilding, character development, thrilling combat, emotion, it has it all and it’s excellently written. The Grey Places remain memorable, but so are so many other parts and events, identifying some that aren’t possibly being harder.
However, I still couldn’t quite follow what was going on, some things seemed to just come out of nowhere, and even some explanations left me with more questions than answers. Sure, part of that is my fault, considering how much I must have forgotten and the fact that I let myself be lulled into not paying enough attention even then, along with the difficulties I have in keeping track of those characters with complicated names and maybe even the fact that I’m not keen on many of the key explanations being more in the realm of science fiction rather than fantasy, but that can only account for a part of the problem, the rest clearly having to do with inadequate or even missing explanations. Some characters seem to understand more than I did, but it’s even explicitly stated that others gave up even trying. Plus that the way the different story arcs were concluded, quite suddenly, separately, and openly, hardly offered any closure. And the very end left me quite literally stunned… But, just like the book and the series as a whole, still somewhat in confusion rather than revelation.

Rating: 4/5