Last night, Otto the storm stormed through, with galeforce winds that made the house shake and rattle and all the vents whoosh every once in a while. By 10 pm, it sounded as if we had a freight train going by the house nonstop. I read in bed until close to midnight and it never really let up once. But this morning I woke to sunshine. It clouded over pretty quickly, but the sun is peeking out again now, though there are still clouds and I can see the tops of the trees waving.
I filled up the bird feeders when I got up, and hosed out the birdbath and refilled it with fresh water, so we’ve had a constant stream of feathered visitors all day: mourning doves, wood pigeons, a big male pheasant, jackdaws, magpies, crows and all the little finches, tits, and sparrows. Martin and I did a run up to Flyinge Plantshop, which just reopened after their winter break, and I found a cool succulent with long wavy green “fingers” to put into the white ceramic peacock planter I found at an antique shop in Malmö last weekend. I also found a Lisa Larsson moose figurine for a reasonable (though still spendy) price, so I was thrilled. I’ve been looking for one of those for YEARS. It’s now happily part of the herd in the moose bathroom.
Martin got the last of the crate stuff moved and put away, and we put all of John’s things up in the attic, so the house is back to normal. We moved the bird chair from my mom into the living room, moved Märta’s tapestry chair to the side where the Poang chair was, and moved the Poang chair and its ottoman into the computer room. I’m very pleased with everything. I figured out a place to put the peacock, and the bellpull that my mom gave me, and Anders just hung it up for me. A little lift in the house always makes everything feel new and exciting!
He is busy at work in the kitchen, continuing the renovation project. We have decided against ripping out the spice cabinet, which is over the stove. We were going to tile that all the way up, and put in one of those freestanding fans, but after thinking about it, Anders decided it would look too squeezed in the narrow space we have, and because we also don’t have another good solution for the spices, we are going to just replace the small horizontal fan that we have with a better, more modern one. We’ll use the tiles that were going there behind the microwave instead, so it will look more cohesive with the tile backsplash on the long wall. He’s working on the trim and sides of the cabinet that goes above the microwave now, which required some adjusting first, and was very glad to find a long piece of the trim saved up in the garage attic. I don’t think he’ll get too much done this weekend, however, and he’s away again next week.
I’m doing laundry and otherwise taking it easy. We don’t have any plans out and about this weekend, for which I am glad. We watched the På Spåret final last night, which was HARD…I think I only knew the answers to 5 of the questions. And I really liked both the teams, so was cheering them both on. Tonight is another Melodifestival show, and then we’ll most likely watch another episode of For All Mankind. We’re in the middle of season 3, only 5 episodes left, and season 4 won’t start before the end of this year. Next week Bäst i Test starts up again, though I’ll miss some of it while I’m away (it will be available on SVT Play when I get back). Not sure what we’ll watch when we’re done with For All Mankind. Russell and Kathey recommended Counterpart, so we’ll probably try that first.
Off to take care of laundry, empty the dishwasher, and clean out the Tupperware cabinet, then I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon reading!
Mood: happy
Music: India.Arie—The Heart of the Matter
We both really liked Counterpart, although I have to say it took a few episodes before we were actually hooked. But the show gets better with every episode, all the way through season two.
But about four episodes before we finished the second season, Amazon suddenly changed it from free-with-Prime to for-purchase-only, seemingly without warning, and not even at the end of the month. It’s now $3 per episode or $15 for each 10-episode season. (There are only two seasons and there won’t be any more).
After seeing it all, I can say that it’s worth paying for, but it’s not the typical mainstream show so some people might not agree. If I was going to buy it though, I’d get it from iTunes for the same price since Amazon pissed me off.
-Russell
We haven’t gotten to it yet, as we still have 3 episodes of For All Mankind to watch and Anders is gone this weekend, but if Amazon is charging us MORE on top of what we are already paying for Prime, I’ll probably cancel all of it. The only reason I got Prime to begin with was to watch Mrs. Maisel and since we’re caught up on that and the next season doesn’t start until April…I don’t know. I feel a little gouged by Amazon if they are charging even more for streaming services. Can I get at iTunes via AppleTV? must be able to.
this week, I mean.
Prime started out as a way to get free two-day shipping, and then later they added Prime Video. So I kind of understand why some of their content is free and some isn’t – although I understand it less each time they increase the annual fee for Prime. But they got an earful from me over the phone on this one, because it was without warning and in the middle of the month.
They said there’s a way to look at a show and see whether it’s “Included with Prime” or just “free right now” (meaning, it may not be free tomorrow). The Prime shows have the blue “prime” sign in the upper left, the buy/rent shows have a “$” sign, and the shows with ads have an “ads” sign. There’s also a blue checkmark that seems to be for shows where you can watch the first episode for free but then you have to subscribe to something like HBO, Showtime, or AMC to get the rest. I can’t figure out which ones are the “free right now but roll the dice and see if they’re still free tomorrow” shows.
I don’t. That is, …understand why some video content is free and some isn’t. If you are paying a subscriber fee to get Prime, and video was supposed to be part of that, because it was added by them to make prime more comprehensive or attractive or whatever, then they should not be charging you MORE for “more prime, that is, PRIME-R content”. I feel like that is gouging. Of all the streaming services we have, it’s the one we watch the least. Hmmm…
It’s all a scam! 🙂 And it’s the one we watch the least as well.