astranoir

Thursday was dentist day. An absolutely routine cleaning.
Friday was go to Fort Bragg and see Richard day. He fixed both Donald and my backs. As usual I went in with pain and emerged an hour later pain free. Nice drive, easy and almost traffic free.
Garden. ( Cut for pics )

kaberett

Reading. I continue to work my way through the She's A Beast archives, to a degree that is not necessarily ... uh ... optimal, in terms of all the other things I want to do...

I slowed down on LIFTOFF, on account of resuming reading from the start with A, and then this evening I tripped and fell and am. More. of the way through it. again.

Finished What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall. Ultimately the argument is that the queerness is a function of community -- the role that food plays in eating together -- though he also tries at various points for "enjoying food is queer" (among other things), which I do not think I am the target audience for. (Having said which I am now wondering what it would take to convince me of that line of reasoning, and Ideas Are Stirring. Hmm.) Overall a mixture of anecdotes from culinary history and fiction to fill in events that went unrecorded; he does hold space for people to be complex and flawed, and I appreciated the history that was actually history, but -- alas, this did not really work for me.

Writing. Words. Continue. To be. Eked out.

Watching. The 2026 Migraine World Summit is ongoing and eating a lot of my time and brain; thus far nothing has made me actually vibrate with fury and I've had a couple of useful joining-the-dots moments, so mustn't grumble there, really. And I have finally watched the talks from last year's Day 2 that I missed due to time changes, and have started transferring my digital notes from last year into my notebook...

Playing. Inkulinati: we continue Not Dead Yet in the Exploders run on Master difficulty.

The Ridiculous Colours Game.

Sudoku... appears to have let go of my brain for now?

Cooking. This evening I have been attempting to remember how to make Spätzle, and got there eventually (part of the difficulty being that this is the first time I've made them since acquiring a dedicated Spätzlebrett, and I needed to reestablish correct consistency of the dough...)

Eating. This morning we engaged in a Weekend Morning Ritual of going down to the local fancy bakery and getting brunch from them. We also got Treats for Afternoon Tea; I am delighted that they'll supply me with cardamom buns that I don't have to actually make myself.

I have also been Craving Brownies, but not enough to actually make them myself (and also The Oven Is Broken), and consequently have eaten them courtesy of both Wagamama (ritual Thursday night takeaway) and London Zoo (Saturday afternoon tea).

Exploring. London Zoo! Saw creatures! Maybe I will even go back and edit in more details about the creatures! Creatures: good.

Several bimbles around local front gardens (etc) to enjoy Spring Flowers.

Growing. Harvested (and consumed!) more salad. Transplanted some garlic. Wrangled some more weeding. Have yet to sow any more things but really want to have Actual Plants this growing season so, uh, maybe that can be a priority for Breaks From Migraine World Summit, not that that's worked so far...

Observing. THE BAT.

And then for brunch this morning we took our breakfast slightly further than usual to a different park bench, this one surrounded by daffodils, and then additionally wandered a little way down the New River (neither new, nor a river) to see if the coots were doing things yet (which I have also been checking every time I go to the pharmacy to pick up meds). The coots aren't, BUT there were TEN EGYPTIAN GOSLINGS peeping about the place!!! At least one of whom was Extremely keen on coming All the way down the bank and plapping along the edge of the bricks, presumably because they were warm and felt nice on feet? Certainly two very gentle attempts to chase it back towards its parents got them contemplating hissing at me, and only persuaded it to maybe do the thing for about thirty seconds at most, so I gave up on that and just stood back and watched them for a bit, and then was very relieved that the foolhardy baby did upon parents Alarm Calling (as best we can tell about A Passing Dog) go FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP all the way back up and into the bundle of its siblings. An unexpected and very welcome delight.

sister_raphael

Had a blast curbside collecting yesterday and gathered a bunch of nice leather in a few different colours, and it struck me that amongst the reenactment crowd (and also nice for the Mother's Day stall) might be a few vegan, cruelty-free options made from high quality fake leather that looks and feels like leather.

Not many reenactors have an aversion to using leather in a historical sense, whether new or recycled, but perhaps there is room in my supplies to cater to vegans. I know their purchasing options are far more limited, and perhaps it might be nice.

There are some really awful fake leathers, but also some very, very nice ones, and yesterday I was able to collect some nice real and I-can't-believe-it's-not-real leather from couches and chairs. I'm always careful only to cut up the ones which are really damaged and leave the good quality ones for needy people (students) who are furnishing their homes on a budget.

sister_raphael

Spices were definitely not added to food to mask the taste because it was rotten. That's a myth. It constantly amazes me how with all the really good info we have out in the wider world in the last 2 decades that ideas like this still make the "Top 10 things you didn't know about the Middle ages" along with ones about hygiene and other nonsense.

This 13th century foodie advice comes from Bartholemew Anglicus from his treatice, On the Properties of things," and from Medieval Household Hints compiled and photographed by yours truly!

redbird

My right shoulder and neck started hurting Friday night, along with an ache on my right side. I tried Tylenol, which did nothing, but this morning it occurred to me that while I know naproxen doesn't help the weird neck/shoulder tension, it might help my back. I tried, and yes it helped.

Other than that, I went for a walk in the snow yesterday, after staying in all day Friday, and in the evening rysmiel, Sasha, and I watched the first half of the National Theater at Home production of _The Importance of Being Earnest_. It's very good, and we are going to watch the rest of it tonight.

foxinthestars posting in

anime_manga

The spring season starts in about two-and-a-half weeks. What are y'all looking forward to?

I am very hyped for the new Ascendance of a Bookworm season.

More guardedly looking forward to Witch Hat Atelier. I've heard good things about the manga and it seems likely to be up my alley but I've never read it so I don't know.

I'm also always up for a fun "villainess" show and I'm seeing a couple of those to check out.

Upcoming anime lists:
Anime News Network: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime/upcoming/tv
Anime-Planet: https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/seasons/upcoming

pedanther

. At the weekly boardgame meet, we played Cockroach Soup (which is like Cockroach Salad but with more slurping, although one player refused to slurp and just said "slurp" instead), Flip 7 With A Vengeance (which is like Flip 7 only more so), Lovecraft Letter (which is like Love Letter with the option to unlock forbidden techniques that are more powerful but increase the chance that you'll go mad and get disqualified), The Mind, and Cheating Moth.

. Further experimentation with the cat-head ice cube tray has established that if I leave it out of the freezer for about fifteen minutes, the ice blocks will melt enough to relent their grip while otherwise retaining their shape. I will probably continue to use the dog tray more often, as I'm not the kind of person to know fifteen minutes in advance that I'll be wanting a cold drink. I have made a mental note to try with fruit juice and see if that affects the grippiness.

. I've played through all the prequel missions in the XCOM 2 "Tactical Legacy" DLC. There's a state I get into sometimes when I'm reading a book that I'm not really enjoying, where I'm still interested in seeing what happens next but what I'm really looking forward to is getting to the point where I've seen what happens next and can move on to something else; that's how I felt when I was doing the last few missions. One thing I can say for them is that they've given me a new appreciation of how the main game works as an ongoing story with a cast of familiar characters who grow and develop over time, with the player getting involved in guiding their development, and isn't just a bunch of arbitrary missions featuring an arbitrary bunch of people with random skill sets.

. Auditions have begun for our next production, which will be the Peanuts-inspired musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I remember auditioning for something years ago (it seems likely it was Putnam County, though it might not have been) with Charlie Brown's kite song from this musical, but I haven't been able to find where I stored the music for it. (I was undecided about whether I would actually audition with it this time, since usually I make a point of not auditioning with a piece from the musical I'm auditioning for, but it would have been nice to find it again regardless.)

. The BBC has announced the recovery of two more missing episodes from early Doctor Who, both from near the beginning of "The Daleks' Master Plan". This means we now have substantially more than we previously had of Adrienne Hill's run as a Doctor Who companion, and of Nicholas Courtney's first appearance on the series.

Coincidentally, the day after the announcement, I was poking around in my digital archive looking for the kite song, when I found a mysterious folder containing a single file with the informative name of "scan0003.jpg", which turned out to be a newspaper clipping from the last time an episode of "The Daleks' Master Plan" was recovered.

. The family walk continues.

the_devils_panties_feed

Posted by Jennie Breeden

https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/16976

snek lick boot

https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/16976

ysabetwordsmith posting in

gardening

Yesterday I discovered the Seed Library Network. I was delighted to find one near me.

Today we visited the Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange. It's on the second floor. We rode the elevator up, and the display was big enough to be seen from where the elevator lets out. Seeds are stored in drawers, sorted by type. There are sections for flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Some of the really popular ones have their own drawer; others are grouped together. Unopened packets of commercial seed are filed as they are, for folks who want to know exactly what they're getting. Opened packets or homegrown seeds are put in envelopes by library staff. With wildflower and landrace seeds, especially mixes, you may get more surprises.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: excited

pedanther

#8: A book with a cover in the same colour as the previous book

Devil in the Mountain: done. The pace picked up toward the end, which is perhaps less a statement about the book itself than about how I had enough grasp of the concepts by then that I wasn't having to keep pausing to process.

StoryGraph Onboarding Challenge: A book you discovered via the 'Similar Users' toggle on the News Feed

Having completed Bleak House, I have to admit that a section in the last quarter fully justifies its inclusion as a detective story, complete with murder, the suspect the police consider obvious but the audience knows didn't do it, the suspect the audience is given every reason to think did it short of actually showing the murder being done, and so on, all the way to the summation in the drawing-room. There's some impressive setting-up of things that will turn out to be important later. There's even a bit where the detective finishes a conversation and pauses on the way out the door to ask one last thing.

I enjoyed the rest of the novel, too, although some of the directions the "heroine is epically clueless about being in love" plot went were, to put it politely, a bit odd.

Miscellaneous

For no other reason than because I reached the front of the hold queue,

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green.

A collection of essays with the conceit that Green is writing reviews of, and giving ratings out of five to, random things that it would be foolish to give ratings out of five to, such as "Viral Meningitis" and "The Lifespan of the Human Race". Most of the essays end up being about more than just the thing being reviewed and rated: The first essay, for instance, is nominally about the song "You'll Never Walk Alone", but also covers the history of the musical it originated in and also looks at the phenomenon of sports fans adopting club songs and Green's history with football club whose fans adopted this song in particular. Many of them, as the title suggests, end up having something to say about humanity's place in, and effect on, the world.

I'm enjoying the essays, and finding it a useful book on days when I want to keep my reading streak going but don't want to get involved in anything long and complicated.

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor.

A university history department staffed by Loveable Eccentrics has access to time machines which they use for conducting first-hand historical research. In due course, there is Plot involving people who wish to use the time machines for more selfish purposes.

( Read more... )

I admit that I did get into it in the run-up to the dramatic climax, which I was suitably engaged by, and the same for the second dramatic climax that, due to an oddity of the plot structure, followed several chapters later. However, the blatant sequel hook in the epilogue failed to find purchase, and I don't anticipate continuing with the series.

hannah

In the continuing adventures of revisiting grad school food, tonight's dinner was egg fried rice made from leftover congee and some stuff I had in the fridge and the freezer. I hadn't realized how much I'd been craving sodium and salt until I took a whiff of the soy sauce. I've been drinking tea and water, and even some electrolyte mixes, but nothing quite that satisfying. So the soy sauce helped considerably.

Most of the day's energy went towards returning some library books. Beyond that, it's slow, it's sluggish. Slugging along, even. Every so often, my ears clear for a few moments and the relief is blissful. There's a mix of not having much energy and not having much to do that's contributing to a sense of inertia, which I'm not sure I can be bothered to mind too much about at the moment.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Morning O - Tom Rosenthal

settiai

Okay, I've got to admit that this is probably some of the best Pi Day news that I've ever gotten. I just found out that I completely missed the fact that Giordano's is going to be opening a restaurant in DC this spring.

Proper stuffed pizza! In DC! I never thought that I'd see the day.

Current Mood: cheerful

kaberett

highlights included:

the lion ROARING
glasswing (Greta oto) pupae: tiny, bright leaf green, with sparkly metallic bits (gold and silver)
the rhinoceros ratsnake (Gonyosoma boulengeri): has a NOSE. why is its NOSE pointy? no(se) idea!
turquoise gecko (Lygodactylus williamsi)

otherwise everything is still Migraine World Summit (though I have once again learned a useful thing today! neck pain can be a prodrome symptom!) and Special Interest.

galadhir

Well, found a lump at about 4am this morning and lay awake until 7am when I could get up. Then I phoned 111. They said they could help me get antibiotics if it looked like it was an infection and thus mastitis, but if I was worried about cancer that required a GP referral, so they couldn't do anything except encourage me to talk to the GP on Monday.

With that on my mind DH and I went to help Son plant some trees at his nature reserve. (I say 'his' because he is on the committee that helps run it.) Planted a bunch of hawthorn, dog rose and dogwood plug plants, each with its own supporting stick, and a plastic deer protector around it. The sun was bright and warm, though the wind was cold, and the birds were singing in the hedges. So after that I felt a lot better and decided not to bother worrying about it, because worrying doesn't help.

DH is now serving behind the bar at the church beer festival. I am looking forward to lunch tomorrow, when we are meeting up with Son, Daughter and Son-in-Law for lunch in honour of Mothering Sunday. Lunch out will probably muck up my diet for this week, but whatever. I'll have a salad and a mint tea, and that will have to do.

einbeistrich

I’m waiting for boarding to begin. I had to put up with a jerk for 20 minutes who was determined to get a woman to tell him where she works and her name. Now I’m enjoying listening to the mix of German and Portuguese around me. How I love these two languages, no matter how ungrateful they may be. In the meantime, my heart aches. What should we do with the love we have for things and people when we can’t handle it properly? I still don’t quite know what to say about that. I just know that I’ve been trying to do everything at the last minute so I don’t have time to feel sadness or pain. It hasn’t been working.

P.S.: I didn’t get the internship I wanted because, according to the feedback, I’m overqualified for it. At the same time, I’m not qualified enough for the regular positions. WTF!

Current Location: Frankfurt Airport
Current Music: I Love You - Fontaines D. C.

the_devils_panties_feed

Posted by Jennie Breeden

https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/16975

umadoshi

I have worked. Uh. A lot. Over the past three weeks. o_o But now it's the weekend, and I don't currently have a rewrite to work on, and March Break lies ahead; the spring crunch isn't finished, but it's on hiatus for the week, and a normal workweek is a breath of fresh air at this point. (Also I'm taking a couple of days off during it.)

Yesterday work wrapped up early enough that I had an actual evening, so I was finally able to start Butterfly Effects, the fifteenth (!) InCryptid book. ("Finally" is a bit of a stretch, I guess, since it's still the release week, but this is a Sarah-narrated book. Mostly. SARAH.)

So my hopes for the weekend are pretty much: avoid napping (I don't find naps restorative and feel groggier after than before I started); finish reading Butterfly Effects; watch this week's The Pitt and hopefully the temporarily-streaming production of The Importance of Being Earnest with

scruloose; get

scruloose to redo my undercut; and (also with

scruloose) do a second round of advance-prepping ten or so bags of the dry ingredients for my breakfast banana bread while also baking up a new batch of loaves. I think that last will also require decanting cinnamons from bags into jars, so maybe we'll manage a bit of other spice decanting/sorting while we're at it.

Current Mood: groggy

hannah

The other day, I ripped a hole in the armpit of a Threadless t-shirt. This is only notable because I checked and I'd gotten that shirt almost 16 years ago. It's gotten some wear and tear over the years, especially in the seams for the sleeves, and I don't know if this specific rip is repairable or not. I don't want to throw it out - it's still a good "lounging around the apartment" shirt - but what I'm tempted to do is to buy a new one as close as I can get, and see how the materials are different. Aside from the nearly 16 years of wear and wash, that is.

They're having a sale, too. Inflation means it won't come out close to the same price, even taking that into account, but it'd make for a decent excuse. I've collected enough t-shirts since college that I can go at least two months without repeating one, easily. Three, if I decide to wear the ones I got as podcast promotions as part of the regular rotation instead of being "travel" shirts. It's not something where I've sat down and counted, or even sorted through. I've just collected and worn them. And, frankly, I don't see much reason to stop. As has been said, at least it beats heroin.

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: nothing now

rmc28

I hadn't been on the ice since last Saturday (Huskies and Women's Blues practices were all Varsity squads only, and Kodiaks practice got cancelled by the rink) but I made it to and through Warbirds practice tonight. It was so worth it. I also got my Varsity notebook from Women's Blues: every team member gets a notebook, and everyone writes a note in every teammate's notebook, and we read them before Varsity to inspire us. Mine was very sweet and I love the team very much for making me welcome.

I need to leave the house in 7.5 hours to get back to the rink for Varsity. I'm playing in alumni game 1, getting cleaned up during alumni game 2, and spending the rest of the day in the scorekeepers box with a rotating cast of some of my favourite people. The three non-alumni games will be livestreamed

14:00 Mixed 2nds (Huskies v Vikings B)
17:00 Women's Blues
20:00 Men's Blues

I also had a little art session this evening before going to the rink, making signs for my Huskies teammates. The sign in Irish may well only be understood by the teammate who got me back into learning Irish this year - our class covered "how to cheer on your sports team" a couple weeks ago and I made careful notes - or maybe it will cause any lurking Gaeilgeoirí in the rink to make themselves known.

I think I'm wound down enough to sleep now.

ysabetwordsmith posting in

gardening

Seed Library Network
This website has extensive resources on seed libraries and seed swaps.

Seed the Map
Is your seed library open? Take 5 minutes to get on the Global Seed Library Map.

Explore the Map
Search the map to find other folks in similar regions or at the same type of location.

Seed Library Networks
Check out the other seed library networks & learn about how you can create your own.

Current Mood: busy

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astranoir

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Page generated Mar. 18th, 2026 05:09 am

Network

Fort Bragg, garden, burning

vital functions

Leather pouch options

13th Century Foodie Advice!

shoulder etc

Spring 2026 Most Anticipated?

Week in review: Week to 14 March

03/15/2026

Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange

Book Chain, etc, Week 11

Thoughts in my head.

π

zoo!

(no subject)

FRA > GRU

03/14/2026

A scattered weekly proof of life

Wardrobe.

Hockey hockey hockey

Gardening