Currently...(11)

"Currently..." updates will be every 2 weeks or so, since I cannot stick to the Tuesday schedule.

I found the Currently post at Kate Hart's blog, who got the idea from Amy Lukavics, who found it here. Please join in and link me in the comments if you do!

LOVING

THE GRAND CANYON!!!
I hadn't been since I was very, very young, and this was the Sister's first time. We went with our parents as a mini-family vacation, and it was lovely. We roadtripped to Williams, Arizona, and made a brief stop at Lake Havasu to see the London Bridge. It is literally a bridge that stood in London that the city bought and had shipped over and rebuilt in Arizona.

From Williams, we took the Grand Canyon Railway into the park and stayed there for a night. It was a great time. The train ride was fun because it was a scenic trip with on-board entertainment (musicians) and free food.

The Grand Canyon itself was, well, grand. It's so incredible to see that your eyes kind of don't know how to process it. It almost looks fake, and if you look at some of my pics, it looks like I'm standing in front of a back-drop.
Because of the one-night stay in the park, we got to see sunset AND sunrise at the canyon, which is pretty special. It was, however, rainy so it kind of messed up our plans for both of these things. Did you know they have "monsoon season" at the Grand Canyon? But I'm grateful for the unpredictable weather in that I got to see the canyon in vastly different climates - super sunny and clear, very cloudy with lightning and thunder, pouring rain and fog, and after-rain sunset and sunrise.


During our sunset tour, we saw bolts of lightning darting down from the sky while we perched on a cliff edge, and then we got caught in a downpour at the Desert View watchtower. Later, drenched and freezing from the fierce wind at Yaki Point, the rain cleared up enough to give us a peek of sunset colors - but I loved it! And at night, it was clear enough that the Sister and I did a little stargazing in the dark parking lot near our room.

Sunrise the next day was also a little cloud obscured but still gorgeous. The early wake-up let us glimpse some mule deer grazing near our lodge and gave us cooler weather to do a tiny bit of hiking down Bright Angel trail. On our way back up, we passed the famous mule trains going down. That's something for my next trip to the canyon!

The train ride back to Williams was nice, but the coolest part was they staged an old fashioned Wild West Train robbery to happen when we were close to arriving. This included bandits chasing down the train by the railside before they boarded and included us in a "hypothetical robbery." So glad I decided to take video of this.

A video posted by alice (@akangaru) on Sep 8, 2015 at 9:58pm PDT

Force Friday - this was basically a big marketing-release event for all the new Star Wars toys and merch. The Sister was excited about it since Comic Con (at least), and so she was in line for the midnight release of the new Force Awakens merch at Target on September 3rd-4th. Her haul that night actually wasn't that great, but she made a killing the next day at early morning stops at the mall.


Most importantly, we got the Sphero BB-8! HE IS SO CUTE and VERY COOL. Sphero is the company that made the actual BB-8 droid used in the new movie, so it's pretty great that you can BUY ONE FROM THEM - albeit a tinier, simpler version. STILL COOL THOUGH. Which leads me to...


End of Summer BBQ - my friends had been planning an end of summer BBQ for a while that would also celebrate September birthdays (friend and the Sister), but it also kind of turned into a BB-8 party because 2 of our friends had bought droids too. So we had 3 droids rolling around at the BBQ. It was pretty great.

There was also a giant, inflatable soccer ball involved. Tons of fun, seriously.



WATCHING
Mostly catch-up shows: Halt & Catch Fire, Mr. Robot, iZombie, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Also currently watching: Catfish, We Bare Bears (the cutest 15 min Cartoon Network show ever), Fear the Walking Dead.

On the movie front, I finally saw INSURGENT, and it was...different. On the other hand, it's been so long since I read the book that I don't quite remember what was the same and what was different.


READING
The last time, I mentioned I'd gotten sucked into Loki's new solo-run comic. Since I'm waiting for the 3rd volume in October, I picked up the sort-of prequel to this run of The Young Avengers and blasted through those. Fun read!

I finished both VENGEANCE ROAD and UNGODLY. VR I finished up in time for my trip to the Grand Canyon. Kate's adventure doesn't take her to the Canyon, but she does spend a lot of time in the beautiful (but harsh) Arizona desert. I thought it'd be nice to have her story and the descriptions of her world in mind while I passed through similar habitats on my Labor Day Vacation.

UNGODLY I literally finished last week in 2 days. As with the other books in the trilogy, once I started, I found I couldn't stop. Kendare Blake's plot is fast, sure, but I love these incarnations of some of my favorite mythical characters so much that I just had to know how their story ended. Satisfying all around.

Reviews for VR to come, but here's my UNGODLY review!

I'm also catching up on the weird-wonderful ODY-C comic book series, which (to remind you) is a genderbent sci-fi retelling of the Odyssey. I still love it, and every issue, I am blown away by Christian Ward's gorgeous, color-saturated art.

LISTENING TO
I'm digging the Halsey album Badlands, and I'm also really into the new One Direction single, Drag Me Down.

However, since Monday, I have been obsessed with the HAMILTON Cast Recording because they put it up for streaming on NPR. AND THE SONGS ARE BETTER THAN I REMEMBER. I LOVE IT.


ANTICIPATING
HAMILTON Cast album!! September 25! And then it will be playing on loop until my ears are bleeding the lyrics. ACTUALLY, YOU CAN STREAM IT ON NPR RIGHT NOW.

GO LISTEN NOW. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. TRUST ME.

Actually, caveat, if you're going to see the actual musical any time soon, I would hold off on listening to the music. Because if you see the musical first, it'll be SUCH a wonderful surprise, and it'll make you love the music even more. BUT if you won't be seeing the musical for the long foreseeable future, then by all means LISTEN AWAY.


WISHING
Always wishing for longer weekends and more time in the day.


MAKING ME HAPPY

• Star Wars merch and frenzy being everywhere! It reminds me of high school when my friends and I were new to the fandom and obsessed with it. There's something so fun and magical about the whole Star Wars thing. I love it, and I am so, so excited for the new movie(s)!

• Seeing the street art around downtown LA and putting together casual cosplay to match it.

• Birthday Celebrations (Cat's birthday) - we did a couple things to celebrate her big 25! We went to a rooftop screening of The Ghostbusters, and we had family dinner at BESTIA (which was so. freaking. good) later in the week. This was topped off by the giant soccer ball/ summer BBQ/ BB-8 party on the weekend! FUN TIMES.

• Geek Girl Brunches - this was only my 2nd one, but when the hostesses announced this month's was going to be Harry Potter themed, I had to go. Since this was only our second time going and we were late last time, it was nice to talk to new people. I did, however, have the most disappointing French toast ever. Lesson to self, don't order anything "French" from an English restaurant.

• The HAMILTON CAST RECORDING because ever since I saw it in February, I've been longing to hear these songs again! *LOVE*

• Poetry - I wrote 2 poems in this summer: 1 long, 1 very short. I received a very kind and personalized rejection on the short one, which was actually incredibly encouraging. Oh and since I've received the check for it, I might as well mention, I SOLD a poem this summer too! More on that in the future. ;)