topaz119 | Reading

Our impending new raised planter is still showing as scheduled to arrive tomorrow while we're both home/not working, so here's hoping!

We just spent a while sifting through some seed listings on the Halifax Seed website (and I mostly kept myself from looking at tomato seeds, since we are not growing any tomatoes from seed*).

*I really wish there were some indication of what tomato varieties will be offered as seedlings, and also wish I knew if the different plant nurseries tend to offer similar varieties of tomato seedlings or not. (ALSO-also, we need to decide whether to focus on trying a few different types to see how we like them vs. focusing on a few determinate plants with the intention of just processing most/all of the fruit into sauce.)

(The seedling sale from a relatively nearby nonprofit that I'm hoping to make it to does offer a short list of potential varieties of things, with the caveat of "These are all the options that we have intended to grow but as all farmers and gardeners know, not every crop pans out. We apologize in advance if some of these options are unavailable, or not ready." For tomatoes, it says "Roma, Brandywine, Scotia +more! / Tropical Sunset, Sungold, Red Torch +more!")

But as noted yesterday, we don't plan to put tomatoes in the actual planter anyway. Thoughts for the actual planter so far: ( thoughts + variety notes )

Current Mood: hopeful

musesfool

I feel like I've probably oversold this post as well-put-together meta when it is mostly a lot of bullet points with me going "WTF? WTF?," which I guess is basically the Dungeon Crawler Carl experience in a nutshell. Anyway! It's a month until Parade of Horribles comes out, so I figured I'd better post before the post was obsolete. *g*

This is mostly stuff that I've picked up on in reading/rereading and am wondering what will be resolved (and when, given that there's supposedly 3 more books, and ( spoiler ) I also wanted to do a little speculation about endings. Because despite people on reddit being very vocal about Dinniman being a horror writer and how it's not going to end happily and everyone will die, I don't believe that to be the case, necessarily, based on my reading of the books. (I mean, is it likely? Sure. Do I want that ending? Nope!)

The first, less salient, point in my favor is that the books open with Carl telling the story in a way that sounds like he's looking back on it, that he's been through it and lived to tell the tale. This is typical in novels written in first person past tense; however, ( spoilers )

The second, more important, point, to me, is the theme of the story that's being told – one of resistance and revolution, anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism – and having that be snuffed out in favor of late stage capitalism and status quo antebellum being restored is just...I don't see it (especially not now). I guess even if everyone dies, the changes Carl et al. have forced on the galaxy will linger, at least for a while, but I am not sure anymore that even Carl dies at the end (I would have said 98% yes he does, but I read some interesting meta on tumblr that made me wonder if he will in fact survive and why, rooted in his own past trauma to make it make sense).

I do think a lot of our favorites will die, probably horribly, but I also think Donut will make it out alive. I cannot imagine killing the cat at this point. It would be interesting and somewhat surprising to make Carl live in the new world too. (I am not just saying this because he's my blorbo, but that might be a major factor in it.) Though how – given his primal race – could be as something new and different (or its own horror, given the givens), which might as well be death in some ways? Metamorphosis, at least. Idk.

Anyway, I've wrestled with how to organize this – by character? by theme? – and decided to go with *drumroll* location! It seemed to make the most sense to me, anyway.

There's spoilers for all 7 books (I am not a member of the Patreon so I haven't read any excerpts from book 8 or the extra material from the print versions of the books) from here on out.

We'll start wide with ( the galaxy )

Which brings us to ( earth's surface )

And then, the most important location, ( the dungeon )

I'm sure there are things I've forgotten/missed/am making too much or too little of, but there is just so much going on that I needed to track it all somehow, and so here we are. If you've read the books, what do you think?

*I said this on tumblr, but I do hope someone makes a Carl vid to Springsteen's Trapped - it's definitely #1 on the Carl playlist I did not actually make but which lives in my head while I contemplate inchoate fic ideas I will never write.

***

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Mets vs A's on tv

musesfool

Today's poem:

July
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

The figs we ate wrapped in bacon.
The gelato we consumed greedily:
coconut milk, clove, fresh pear.
How we'd dump hot espresso on it
just to watch it melt, licking our spoons
clean. The potatoes fried in duck fat,
the salt we'd suck off our fingers,
the eggs we'd watch get beaten
'til they were a dizzying bright yellow,
how their edges crisped in the pan.
The pink salt blossom of prosciutto
we pulled apart with our hands, melted
on our eager tongues. The green herbs
with goat cheese, the aged brie paired
with a small pot of strawberry jam,
the final sour cherry we kept politely
pushing onto each other's plate, saying,
No, you. But it's so good. No, it's yours.
How I finally put an end to it, plucked it
from the plate, and stuck it in my mouth.
How good it tasted: so sweet and so tart.
How good it felt: to want something and
pretend you don't, and to get it anyway.

***

I caught up on Abbott Elementary last night and ( spoilers )

***

Current Mood: shocked
Current Music: Feelin' Alright - Joe Cocker

extrapenguin posting in

space_swap

Works have been revealed! Time to dive in and enjoy!

Thank you to all participants, especially our wonderful pinch hitters, who helped the collection reveal on time. Creators will be revealed in one week.

dolorosa_12

I've just rushed in to gather the remainder of the laundry, as it suddenly began bucketing down rain. Amusingly, the neighbours on either side sprinted out to their own gardens at exactly the same moment to do exactly the same thing, and we all gave each other rueful smiles. It's that time of year.

I was recovering from a fairly mild cold this weekend (the worst of it was on Wednesday and Thursday, so by Saturday I was just at the stage of sniffling a bit, and having constant nosebleeds), so things have been relatively quiet, even by my standards: no pool, no gym, very limited activities. I did go to Waterbeach with Matthias yesterday, to sit for a few hours in the taproom of the brewery that only opens up one Saturday a month (where we listened to the couple next to us plan their wedding, with much arguing over seating plans and whether or not to have a traditional fruit cake, but general agreement as to the — seemingly bottomless — quantities of alcohol they were going to serve their guests), and eat handmade pizza from the food truck next door.

Otherwise, the only eventful stuff this weekend has been gardening: readying a few containers with compost in order to transfer the mixed lettuce, dill, and spring onion seedlings out of the growhouse some time later in the week, and planting the next batch of growhouse seedlings (rocket, radishes, corn, zucchini, butternut pumpkin, garlic kale, red spring onions, giant cabbages, and peppermint chard). I'm feeling quite smug that we managed to get all this done this morning, before the rain began.

I think I've only finished two books this week — probably not helped by the fact that I spent Thursday in bed dozing — but both were relatively satisfying.

The first was The Rider of the White Horse, continuing my Rosemary Sutcliffe reading with a big shift from her Romano-British trilogy to the time of the English Civil War, and from her resolutely male protagonists and worlds to a female protagonist: the wife of an aristocrat from the north of England fighting for the Parliamentary cause who follows him across the various battlefields as their fortunes wax and wane. As with other Sutcliffe books, it has a very strong sense of place, as well as a strongly crafted depiction of life with an early modern army on the move: the muddy plains of battle, the besieged cities, with their populations' fate resting on the choices and consequences happening outside their walls, but here also with an additional focus of what this world might have been like for its women. The other feature that I've come to recognise as a Sutcliffe staple — the sense of the catastrophic ending of a particular kind of world, and the disorienting horror felt by people as old familiar certainties are cast aside, unmooring them from former expectations and reference points — is also present and correct. The central relationship — between the protagonist and her husband — is an interesting authorial choice, in that it is an aristocratic arranged marriage which opens with one spouse (the wife) loving the other while knowing that this love is not returned, and over the course of the book, and all the pair experience together and separately, their feelings shift and change until their love for each other is mutual, and more mature, being based, at this point, on a deeper understanding of each other as people. In general, I found the whole book very solid, although it didn't resonate quite as strongly with current global politics as some of her previous fiction that I've read.

I followed this with Mythica, in which classicist Emily Hauser uses the women of and adjacent to Homeric epics as a jumping off point to explore the lives of women in the historical record, and in the material culture of west Asia and the eastern Mediterranean, with digressions into reception studies, and many millennia of literary criticism, historiography, and the shifting western literary canon (as well as some contemporary female character-centric Iliad and Iliad-adjacent retellings).

It's a good thing that although Hauser's name seemed vaguely familiar to me, I had forgotten that this was because she had written a Briseis-centric Iliad retelling that I absolutely detested, because if I'd remembered that detail, I would never have picked up Mythica. (In a very comical moment, she mentions her own retelling as one among many supposedly feminist recent takes on Homer's epic that restore interiority and agency to its women: you and I remember your novel very differently, Emily Hauser.) I'm not enough of a classicist or an archaelogist to know how solid her pulling together of the various threads was, but I felt that as a picture of a specific region in a specific moment in time, shedding light on its non-elite residents (women, enslaved people, ordinary artisans and traders) it did a pretty good job, although Hauser had a frustrating tendency towards certainty where I felt she could stand to be more equivocal when it came to the evidence available. When it came more to the literary and intellectual history of the many millennia of human engagement with Homeric epic, I found the book to be more superficial (is it really news to anyone that for most of recorded 'western' history, the male intellectual and political elite were either silent or misogynistic about the women of the Iliad and the Odyssey?), but possibly this is a reflection both of the type of fiction I tend to read for pleasure (I have a 'briseis fanblog' tag for a reason) and my academic background. Ultimately, I felt that the 'women of the Iliad and the Odyssey' framing of the book was a convenient structure and marketing gimmick for what in reality was an interesting and accessibly told survey of the history and material culture of the lives of ordinary people of the eastern Mediterranean (she does a particularly good job at emphasising the extent that the sea operated as a road, and how outwardly oriented everyone's lives were) that might otherwise have struggled to find a publishing foothold.

In the half-hour or so that it's taken for me to write this post, the rain has, of course, stopped, and my laundry — now laid out on every available surface of the house — is looking at me in a somewhat accusatory manner!

beanside

Somehow, it's already Sunday. Yesterday seemed to be gone in a flash, but we did a lot, so that was good. Today will be a slower day, thankfully. Though I will try to get some things done. I do need to decide whether I'm going to go to the farmer's market this morning before game. I'm very tempted, but also a wee bit tired from all the running around we did yesterday. I will see how I feel after coffee. Then, we shall hve game, then I will take my sister to her in-laws for Greek Easter in the hopes that when BIL brings her back there will be treats. After that, there should be time for some relaxation, some studying and maybe to do a little bit of chores.

I think part of the reason yesterday went so fast is that I was low key stressed out the entire day. I have been dreading Yoda's first visit to doggy day care. The last one went so disastrously that I have been having anxiety for the last week. (For those who don't remember, he flunked out of traditional dog day care for being "aggressive," and barking at other dogs. Then, the person we were going to have dogsit declined because he was "too wild." So, with the trip coming uo quickly, we decided too try Best Friends Furever.

He had to be there early between 7-8am, and he needed to stay until 6, so a long day for the buddy.

We took him in at 7:30, and he went off with the worker, and we walked out to stress until 6pm. At about 11am, we got some pictures and a mini report card that said he was being good, but was shy.

Jess and I went out to lunch and came back to no dog, which was weird. Then we did some cleaning, and that was good. I pulled out my suitcase and started packing. I had gotten together some cold-weather stuff, so I started packing that and some of my fancy dress stuff. I may bave gotten too big of a suitcase. I'm halfway done packing, but the suitcase isn't even half full. Oh well, plenty of room for souvenirs. One thing I did not do was to take the phones to Tmobile for trade in. I'm going to lie and say I put them int he UPS box so that they'll take them back, because I have no shame.

Then, we decided that since we had no dog, we should all three go out to dinner, which was actually very nice. We had delicious food at the Gourmet at Kennilworth which was amazing. We'd been for lunch before, but their dinner menu is top notch. They specialize in seafood, so we all ended up getting fish. I got a grilled halibut with lemon and butter. It was really good. My first time trying halibut and I am sad that it is not more easily available around here. None of my fish places have it, sadly. We also had some very excellent French onion soup and I had a raspberry ammaretto cake.

Then, we rolled ourselves out to the car and went to get Yoda. He was super excited to see us and barked and gave us the business for leaving him all day. But, the important thing! The staff said he did great. He really blossomed in the afternoon, and let them all pet on him and tell him how good he was. He got his official collar, and has his next few stays booked! I swear, when she said "he did great," my shoulders finally dropped from around my ears with a wave of relief so strong it nearly made me sit down. My dog did not flunk daycare, and his stay for the vacation is booked and a deposit paid. I'm so happy. All the way home and honestly most of the evening, he was made over and told what a good boy he was. So he'll go back on Friday for two nights, since Jess and I are going to NYC on Saturday. We'll pick him up early on Sunday and doubtless get the business again.

I feel so much better about vacation knowing that he's in good hands. I mean, we still have the overnight hurdle to handle, but I'm feeling much more confident about that. He will have people who will care for him and a good environment where he can grow and get more social. It's a win-win.

I'm debating on dropping him in for a weekday this week, so he doesn't lose momentum. We'll see what we decide.

After that, everyone, including Yoda, was exhausted, and we came home and relaxed until it was time for bed.

Today will be less busy, though I still want to get some shit done. But I'd also like to spend some quality time with Jess. I've got seven episodes of the Amazing Digital Circus to watch before we go to see the final two episodes in the theater in June, so maybe we can get one in today. I've got laundry to do, owing to cleaning up the space beside my bed. I have SO many clothes to donate. Just an enormous bag of them. I may take them to the donation box today. There's some nice shit in there.

Tomorrow will be back to work, and a busy day. I have a lunchtime virtual doctors appt at which I'll ask for an increased dose on the Mounjaro. Tuesday, I get my pre-trip haircut. and at some point next weekend, I need to dye my hair. I suppose I could do that today, though. I do need a shower so that might be good. I've decided to do purple on top and leave the sides grey. Last haircut, they ended up cutting out most of the color on the sides, and I've gotta admit, I kind of like the grey at the temples contrasted with the purple on top. It looks super cool. Also makes my head look a little bit thinner, I think.

The rest of the week is quiet until we get to Saturday and going to see the Lost Boys Musical in NYC, which should be super fun. I feel bad that we're leaving my sister completely alone, with no dog to keep her company, but he needs overnight time in the daycare and I need not to be worrying about her trying to walk him.

Okay, time to do a bit of studying for my morning. I need to make up my mind on the farmer's market in the next 20 minutes, so I will ponder that. I really do want to go see what they have, but I'm not sure I can stir myself to get ready and go. We shall see how I feel in 10 minutes. I have a feeling that the lure of game snacks might win out, but we shall see. Everyone have a fantastic Sunday!

extrapenguin posting in

space_swap

Thanks to the heroic efforts of our pinch hitters, everyone has a gift and the collection will open on time! *\o/*

Launch imminent at 17:00 CEST! (in your timezone | countdown)

denise posting in

dw_maintenance

I keep forgetting to post about this: we've been troubleshooting the "missing notifications" problem for the past few days. (Well, I say "we", really I mean Mark and Robby; I'm just the amanuensis.) It's been one of those annoying loops of "find a logical explanation for what could be causing the problem, fix that thing, observe that the problem gets better for some people but doesn't go away completely, go back to step one and start again", sigh.

Mark is hauling out the heavy debugging ordinance to try to find the root cause. Once he's done building all the extra logging tools he needs, he'll comment to this entry. After he does, if you find a comment that should have gone to your inbox and sent an email notification but didn't, leave him a link to the comment that should have sent the notification, as long as the comment itself was made after Mark says he's collecting them. (I'd wait and post this after he gets the debug code in but I need to go to sleep and he's not sure how long it will take!)

We're sorry about the hassle! Irregular/sporadic issues like this are really hard to troubleshoot because it's impossible to know if they're fixed or if they're just not happening while you're looking. With luck, this will give us enough information to figure out the root cause for real this time.

musesfool

Yesterday, after I logged off work, I made these banana blueberry muffins, which used up the last of all the fruit that I got last week in the wrong grocery order (well, the raspberries got moldy before I could use them, so they just got thrown out, but I used the strawbs, the bluebs, and the bananas in the end). They're good!

Then this afternoon, I tried out this vanilla cupcake recipe, which I had originally planned to make for Easter. As written, it makes 40 mini cupcakes, so if I make it next weekend to take to work on Tuesday, which is what I am thinking, I will double it. And make that KAB whipped ganache frosting. I might do that tomorrow, just because I can, once the last of the ground meat I received last weekend is thawed and used to make meatballs. I have ravioli in the freezer so I can free up even more space (I used the frozen tortellini last night). Anyway, I want to see if these vanilla cupcakes really do stay moist for a few days. I already replaced vanilla with funfetti for Christmas, but I feel like you should always have a good vanilla cupcake recipe in your back pocket, and the one I like for cake was never the best for cupcakes.

Now I've got a chicken roasting in the oven and it smells so good.

Anyway, here's today's poem:

Hurry
by Marie Howe

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry—
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.

***

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Rangers vs Stars on tv

voxtekmod posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

umadoshi

Seasonal crunch is over! Feels like freedom, if you ignore the part where I still have, y'know, a job + freelance stuff. Increased freedom. We'll go with that.

My day off yesterday entailed such thrilling things as sleeping in and then taking ages to get up because Jinksy came to snuggle*; finishing my breakfast and tea by around noon; getting some banking done; washing my hair; vacuuming the two main levels of the house; spending several full hours being a cat-lap for Sinha; and starting in on a new novel for the first time since March Break or so.

*When I texted

scruloose to say good morning, they said, "When my first alarm went, it was competing with Jinksy over on your other side rumble-purring so hard I swear the mattress was reverberating with it."

Reading: A couple more chapters of Braiding Sweetgrass, and I've finished Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks, which has a fair number of recipes but is, as the title indicates, more of a family history than a cookbook.

And last night I didn't want to spend much mental energy on choosing what fiction to read, so I decided to just go with Tough Guy, the third Game Changers novel. I imagine in the not-too-distant future I'll pick up the ebook "box set" of books 4-6 just to have them on hand.

Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and have seen five episodes of One Piece season 2, and I imagine we'll finish the latter before backtracking for the last couple-few episodes of Frieren. (I've also made note of this elsewhere, but to reinforce it in my brain: after The Pitt finishes, I need to remember to cancel our Crave subscription again.)

Eating: After the crunch ended on Thursday,

scruloose and I ordered from a new (?) Korean BBQ place (bb.q Chicken) that a stranger in the local Bluesky feed had mentioned was good. We tried the bone-in Classic Fried Chicken (very minimal spicing, but very solid) and the boneless Golden Fried Chicken, the description of which didn't indicate any particular spiciness, but it turned out to be right on the edge of my comfort level...but also a really delicious seasoning to go with the heat, so I'm counting that as a definite win. The place offers a whole array of flavor options, so I imagine we'll be trying it again.

Weathering/Growing: Yesterday was sunny and relatively warm, and now we're back to a slightly-chilly rainy/damp stretch, but a few days in the forecast will theoretically get back up into the double digits.

At my instigation, we're going to take another stab at Doing Garden Stuff this year. ( VERY preliminary notes )

Current Mood: thoughtful

mere_mortifer posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: amused

precuretokumod posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: somewhere
Current Music: zts - lastendconductor

beanside

Happy Saturday! It's early, but we're still awake! Why? No fucking clue. And that's somewhat annoying. Today shall be a dog-less day, as Yoda is going to be going to the doggie boarding place. He's doing a "play your way" day, which means he won't have other dogs in his enclosure, but will have someone who will offer to take him out. and walk him, and play with him. I am anxious as balls about this. Hopefully he's a reasonably good puppy.

I have a potential game, though one player's cats is not well, so that'll depend on how the kitty's night goes as to wether we can play. I am 100% sympathetic, and am perfectly willing to wait and see if she's up to playing. If so, it'll be around 11am. After that, maybe we'll go out to lunch. No clue where. Jess' anxiety and my ADHD rub against each other on the decision of food, because I do the thing where we'll have it figured out, and then I start offering other choices on the day of, and drive them insane. So this time I just didn't mention food and we'll just decide and go. I don't know where I want to go, but I want somewhere tasty.

Oh, I also have to run to the Punjab market for more meats for Yoda. I'd like to make a couple of batches of different meals for him this weekend. I also need to take our old phones back to t-mobile so that we get to keep our discount.

We got a thing the other day from the apartments that they're coming in to replace our balcony railing somewhere between now and May 19th, so we put the Christmas tree in storage finally. The room looks weird without it. I'm going to try to spend a little time this weekend cleaning up some. The apartment has gotten very messy. It's not like filthy, just stuff on the floor and clutter. We've been getting a lot of delivery boxes and Jess hasn't been able to keep up with getting them to the dumpster.

Here's a much better view of my tattoo without the saniderm. I took that off yesterday to wash and lotion it.

I love it so much. You can really see the patterns of her fur in this shot. It's rewrapped uner another saniderm patch, which will stay for a few days. After that, it'll be just lotion and gentle washing.

I think I timed it so that it should be healed by vacation, but I'll have plenty of lotion just in case.

Yesterday was a good day. Morning was fairly slow, nothing to report there, but then I had the lunchtime meeting where we had some excitement. We were doing our normal bitchfest, and then the head of outpatient Rad pinged J & A with a "Are you available for a quick chat?"

They ditched and went into the other meeting with P. When they came back, they were fuming. I've noticed that we're getting a lot of requests for tests to be read in our one site. Apparently the radiologists are overwhelmed, so they've contracted a team of radiologists to read our films. (Not sure how much I like that.) But things are still not being read quickly. So, instead of hiring someone else, or hiring more radiologists, they have made the executive decision that we will no longer do most STAT appointments at that site, because we can't guarantee that things will be read in time. It's our busiest site, and they can't do STAT appointments. This is going to go over so well. Also it's near DC, and the closest other radiology site we have is half an hour+ away from this one. The site has a lot of older clientele, and most of them will not go anywhere else.

After that, I grabbed a short lunch, and then was on the help chat for 2 hours, providing my wisdom and guidance. I had one that stumped me, but I feel better because it also stumped J and the techs. They're sending the question to the radiologist.

I don't mind doing the chat. It was fairly slow yesterday, so I only had about 7 questions to answer, which is not bad.

After that, I took my break, and came back with less than 20 minutes til it was time to leave.

Then, we took Yoda to the vet for his second flu shot and his Cytopoint allergy shot. That'll hold him until we get back from Alaska, since they're usually good for about 6 weeks.

Then we had Blades in the Dark, which went well. We were down one

poisontaster owing to an eye dilation induced headache, but her character was an integral part of the game anyway. I was able to spotlight some players that don't always get a ton to do, and fun was had by all, I think.

It did mean that now they have two heists running concurrently. The one has kind of fallen by the wayside, as a dastardly underworld group has released a plaugue on the land of Doskvol. The team is racing for the antidote/cure, but it's complicated that the shady underworld mafia is comprised of one of the character's family, who he works with part time. I told them that if they finished either heist, they'd get to use the downtime mechanic, where they can clear some stress and regain health.

It went really well and I enjoyed myself (and my game snack Peking duck and dumplings) very much. I can't do it for early afternoon or morning games, because the dumpling place doesn't open til 11:30, meaning the food doesn't arrive unitl 12:30-12:45 when we're already playing. But they're amazing for night games though.

Tomorrow, we have an early game at 9am. I'm looking forward to it. It's chaos personified, but I think we're going to win this battle today. It was an enormous fight between us, who are a party of 9 players, plus about 100 enemies. The turn order was ridiculously large, and it took most of a game to get through one round, but it's been so fun. Stressful for me as the cleric, but I've kept everyone alive and upright so far.

It'll be Greek Easter, so my sister will be heading off for that, hopefully to bring me some dolmades home. I fucking love my BIL's dolmades. I may see if Jess is okay staying with Yoda while I run over to the flear market in Eastpoint. They're opening this week and are open til 2, unlike the one downtown which is open to 12, and I will not be able to get to, unless I get myself together and go super early, which is also always a possibility, since they open at 7 and game is at 9.

It would give me a good hour to shop, which I really don't need. I doubt there'll be a ton of produce, mostly just other stuff. I might be able to find some good game snacks, especially if the Empanada truck is there.

And of course, at some point, I need to get some studying done. Whoohoo.

I might make us one of the pork tenderloins, since Yoda is getting the same, just cooked differently, and without one of the good Hawaiian spice mixes we've gotten. We're supposed to get more today, so it might be a challenge to decide which one to use. I also ordered some more of what they call potions, but are really syrups for your drink. We had the vanilla one which was amazing. This time I ordered vanilla, coconut, salted caramel and honey ginger. I'm looking forward to trying them when they come. They were excellent in coffee.

Okay, I suppose it's time for me to hop off and maybe study. Maybe. Might save it for this afternoon. We shall see. Or, I could start Yoda's pork stew with sweet potatoes and oats. We'll see. First I need to get off the couch. Everyone have a superb Saturday!

musesfool

Today's poem:

The Other Woman

as I picture her
she has no basil
no cumin
no sun-hardened hyssop
nor sage around her eyes

she never catnips
but laughs comfrey
tansy with a primula smile

as I think of her
she's angelica
foxglove and jasmine
somewhat peppermint
not letting you see
all her saffron at once

one day I’ll meet her
that rue woman
that wild indigo teasel
somewhere neutral
free of woodruff and of dropwort
some summer savory

she's the nose
set to lavender
eye full of sesame
ear ringing rosemary

she's wind
through wild thyme

--Twyla M. Hansen

*

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Mets pregame

lycomingst

I got my car back after paying a TREMENDOUS amount. Well, the car is 17 yrs old and the back wheels were about to fall off or something. I didn't get the air conditioning fixed because I ain't going nowhere hot. I just suffer driving to Safeway.

dolorosa_12

This week's prompt was sparked by an interesting conversation with

hamsterwoman in the comments to a previous post, in which we were discussing the extent to which we felt our childhood environments influenced our interest (or lack thereof) in playing board games as adults. And so:

Did you grow up regularly playing board games (either with your family, or in other contexts)? Do you feel that this affected the prominence (or lack of prominence) of board games in your later life?

( My answer )

What about all of you?

turps

Bodhi and Kayleigh dropped in for a little while yesterday. While here Bodhi went and stood in front of the shelves in the living room and asked why I had all of that stuff, meaning my display of Funkos. So, I explained, like her, I liked superheroes, at which point she said, if I liked superheroes where was Spider-Man? Sorry various Hawkeyes, Ronin, Winter Soldier etc, you're just not superheroes enough it seems. But sigh, judged by a four-year-old and found lacking again.

The craft fair on Monday was a weird one. Despite being there from before nine to four, the time seemed to fly, and yet we only made one sale, so didn't even get the table price back. Mainly it was due to location, when we'd first been offered a spot it was mentioned there were tables outside and inside, and while that was true, there was actually only one table inside, the rest being in the pub garden, so it wasn't very often people actually saw the one in the foyer at the back. Which of course, was the one we'd been assigned. I mean, it was good to be warm with some decent music to listen to, but you need people for sales.

One bonus was the pub was just over the car park from a Morrisons, so I went there for two meal deals for dinner, because nearly £5 for one drink of Pepsi Max from the pub was only going to happen once.

The organiser did ask if James wanted a table at the next event, but thankfully, it's the same date as the monthly maker's market in our town we always attend, so we didn't have to make up an excuse to turn down the invite.

A couple of people have been reading and commenting on many of my bandom stories lately, and getting those comments has been delightful. I especially liked the one on Painted Ponies where they commented, and when i replied, replied to that comment with even more detailed feedback, saying they'd thought I'd have been long gone from the fandom. And nope, despite the lack of actual writing, still love that ridiculous band, still hanging onto to the edges of the fandom with a few other fandom bandom olds.

Funnily enough, the last comment was on Caged where the band is saved by Spider-Man, adding to the Spidey mentions this week.

I was in Lush the other day buying a bunny bath bomb for Bodes, and they had these ( sparkly ET bath bombs )

beanside

Sometimes I hate the length of the subject line in Dreamwidth. There's another short line to that lyric, and it annoys me that it won't fit. Oh well.

Today I have a little planned. At work, I'll be doing my thing and then we'll have the manager bitchfest meeting and then the rest of the day. Afterwards, we need to take Yoda to the vet to get his flu and Cytopoint shots. Hopefully, he's feeling up to going to doggie day care tomorrow. If not, I'll move it to Tuesday. Then, tonight, we have Blades in the Dark, which should be a lot of fun. Still deciding if I want to get game snacks, since we won't have any other games that qualify.

Yesterday was also busy. I took a few calls, moved a few patients and then it was my time to watch the help queue and provide answers to questions. They were pretty easy, so it wasn't a bad time. Then after lunch I had the training for our new VOIP phone system. That is two hours that I won't get back. It was dull, self explanatory and could have been an email or a training. It was just brutal. My managers were also in the class, and they were back in the Rad Leaders chat just roasting the class. "Cringe" was the big accusation leveled against it. All in all, I'm glad it's over.

After work, I headed up to see my tattoo artist. She had a very cool drawing of what the tattoo would look like. I arrived at 4:45, did paperwork and Ronie got set up. I figure we started at about 5:15pm. I was done and in the car at 6:05. It was super fast. Then again, I tend to sit like a rock, so I'm an easy person to tatoo. She had set up her tablet with a picture of Boodle, that she superimposed her drawing on, so I have Boodles actual fur pattern on her chest. I absolutely love it. It's very her.

Tattoo og a paw print filled with the mottled calico pattern of my late cat

Tattoo og a paw print filled with the mottled calico pattern of my late cat

It still has the bandage on it, but I'll be taking that off tonight when I can submerge my arm in water. It usually hurts more than the tattoo did to peel off the second skin. Tomorrow, I'l have a clearer picture of it. Then it was home to eat and sniff the BPAL smellies that came in. I liked a lot of them, which was nice. Some I'm not sure about, but I'll give them second chances. I may try wearing some for Blades, though I have absolutely no idea what. I'd been wearing Scheherazade, because storyteller, but I feel like Blades needs something with an iron note. I'll save Scheherazade for the first Marchen game next Sunday.

Tomorrow, I have a pretty quiet day. I've got a game at 11am, Too Many Draculas. After that, I may drag Jess out for a late lunch for something tasty. 11am is too early for dumplings, so I will forgo our game snacks meal. I don't think next week, we have any games that we could do game snacks for, but we'll see. I might do them for Marchen and just take a little break early in the game when they arrive.

Sunday brings an early moring (9am) game. We might finish the Life's a Beach oneshot! (So far it's been almost 10 sessions. To be fair, it was supposed to be a quick combat, but we (okay, I) messed that up by blinding a dragon and bringing the big bad who we were supposed to end up chasing, down to the ground. DM's make the most chaotic energy as players. If there is away to completely upend your plan, it's going to be the player who DMs.

To be fair, for early games, I'm also fully on my ADHD meds, so all of my chaos is on purpose. I didn't zone and have to come up with something to do on the fly. That can lead to uncontrolled chaos.

Usually, I inflict that as DM on my nighttime games.

We're down to 27 days til cruise. I'm going to pull out my suitcase this weekend and start packing some things. Nothing that I'm still using, but I do want to see how much space everything will take up. But things like my slippers and nice shoes can go in the suitcase, as well as the fleecy leggings. I may pack a few pairs of regular leggings, but we'll see. Right now I'm focusing on the long sleeve shirts, fleece leggings and shoes as well as cosmetic stuff that will go into the carry on.

Oh, speaking of vacation! Last night, one of the packages that came in was my sister's Bento Bag. She really liked mine, so we ordred her one. Since I was placing the order because I had a 20% off coupon code, I saw that they had a bundle that included their fanny pack and got one of those, too.

I'm always worried when I order fanny packs, because I never know if the strap will be long enough to fit my fat ass. I opened with more than a bit of trepidation. I shouldn't have worried. The strap was fully extended, and it nearly fell to the ground when I put it on. I had to adjust the strap by about 16" for it to stay put. I loved it. I didn't feel fat for a few minutes. lol. It's also really pretty, a dark blue that will clash with the bento bag I got (which is pink).

I think we have all the stuff we need at this point. I've got my Doctor's appt on Monday, where she can order my Mounjaro, which will last for the trip. I've got one more vial of the lower dose, but I definitely want to try the higher. This just isn't doing enough.

Maybe tomorrow, I'll also cook another batch of food for Yoda. I think the next one is pork, so that'll be good. I can cut up the tenderloins I got yesterday, and maybe some oats and sweet potatoes. I found a dog-friendly pork broth that I can stew it all in. Maybe Sunday, I'll make him some goat and rice and veggies. I still have a few trays of ground goat that I can cook up to make him happy. I need to get another order of groceries from them, so that I can continue to make food for him. He won't need it at the kennel tomorrow, but next weekend when he has his long weekend stay, I'll need to provide him food.

I also have to find time to clean up in our room a bit. I have a large pile of clothes that I need to go through, so I will work on that some. The apartments want to come replace our balcony railing, sometime between today and May 19th. I'm hoping for somewhere around May 7-17th. That would be helpful. OF course, this is going to require cleaning up the living room, so that will be fun.

But for now, I need to do some studying. These articles aren't going to read themselves. Everyone have an excellent Friday!

pensnest

...was a palpable sense that you, as a vocalist, were—CATFOOD
It was so perfect, I just had to laugh.

Why no, I do not pay YouTube and yes, the advertising can break in at awkward times

But when I came home after chorus last night I happened upon a Richard Marx episode of Stories To Tell, on YouTube, from about five months ago. It's here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGyiVEWcVcU

The guests are JC Chasez and Lance Bass, and it is lovely! Really interesting, from both of them, from different perspectives on the early days of Nsync to how Lance really felt about being unable to come out to JC's work on the Frankenstein musical (Playing With Fire), all kinds of stuff. And Richard Marx genuinely likes them both and they like him. It is just a delight to listen to. And it is almost an hour and a half long.

Marx mentioned Candide—okay, Candide? anybody? What did JC do with that?

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Profile

topaz119

pinboard recs

September 2024

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Page Summary

umadoshi - Garden pre-PRE(?)-planning. Or something.
musesfool - When the game is over, I won't walk out the loser*
musesfool - the salt we'd suck off our fingers
extrapenguin in space_swap - Reveals!
dolorosa_12 - Your ears and your eyes for the tears and the lies that I sing
beanside - Got a demon in my soul and a voice in my head aayin' go, go, go, I can sleep when I'm dead
extrapenguin in space_swap - Everyone has a gift!
denise in dw_maintenance - The case of the missing notifications
musesfool - her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down
voxtekmod in fandomcalendar - Hazbin Hotel: Staticmoth Prompt Fest
umadoshi - Weekly proof of life: less-crunchy days ahead | media | Korean BBQ | initial gardening thoughts
mere_mortifer in fandomcalendar - One Piece - Fanwork Exchange
precuretokumod in fandomcalendar - Chemy Card Spring Silly!!
beanside - You didn't know that when I tried this all before, my dreams were too hard to defend
musesfool - she's wind through wild thyme
lycomingst - (no subject)
dolorosa_12 - Friday open thread: board game background
turps - (no subject)
beanside - I work each day and night like clockwork to try to make ends meet, I could kick this bad worlds ass
pensnest - every word I say is true

Style Credit

Style: Ivory Alcea for Mobility by branchandroot
Resources: Mitsuba Aoi

Page generated Apr. 12th, 2026 09:13 pm