Network

Write Every Day: Day 22

Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

Note: I'll be away from email again tomorrow, so my check-in post will again go up a couple hours later than usual. If that's inconveniently late for you, just go ahead and check in on the most recent post whenever is convenient.

My check-in: Got up early to catch my bus to the all-day conference (and shared the bus ride with a coworker, so I couldn't even write in transit!). However, I did sneak in a couple of edits first thing on getting up, go me. (Well, second thing: I started coffee first-first.)

Day 22:

china_shop,

dswdiane,

sanguinity

Day 21:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 20:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

( More days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

Entry tags:

Daily Happiness

1. I had a WFH day today so we went down to DCA for lunch. It was such a nice day weather-wise (just the right amount of warm, lots of cloud cover for the most part but not just a grey sky) and the crowds were low. We had some delicious food from the Food and Wine Festival, which wraps up this weekend, and since it's been a month since we were there, there was lots of new merch to admire.

2. We were out for about five hours, which is the longest we've been away from home since we got back, and we were a little worried we might come home to another pee incident, but there was no pee! Jasper was super needy this morning (but he often is on mornings I work from home) and we had a good half-hour snuggle at my desk before leaving. He did hork on the sofa while we were out, but I would rather deal with a hundred incidents of vomit than a single pee incident, so while it wasn't ideal, it wasn't a big deal, either.

3. One thing I do not miss about Japan is the allergies. I have in the past decade or so developed some degree of allergies at home as well, having not ever had any growing up or in my early adulthood, but not to the degree that I get them in Japan. Before our trip, I think the weather here was bringing them out more as I did have some reactions many days, if not all, but I have been blessedly sniffle-free since getting back (though today my eyes are a bit stingy).

4. Molly's showing off her perfect snoot.

Entry tags:

Cherry Magic

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

Entry tags:

disney

2026 Disneyland Trip #20 (4/22/26)

It's been exactly a month since we've been to Disneyland. Well, our Disneyland anyway. We had originally planned to go last weekend, but were still too worn our from our trip, so we put in for a mid-week trip today and went down for lunch.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

Hellsing: Hellsing Mini Exchange 2026

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

Entry tags:

mostly about podfic

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Mets vs Twins on tv

Entry tags:

fire creates its own weather

Today's poem:

Pyrocumulus
by Arthur Sze

Peony shoots rise out of the earth;

at five a.m., walking up the ridge,

I mark how, in April, Orion's left arm

was an apex in the sky, and, by May,

only Venus flickered above the ridge

against the blue edge of sunrise.

In daylight, a pear tree explodes

with white blossoms—no black-

footed ferret slips across my path,

no boreal owl stirs on a branch.

At three a.m., dogs seethed and howled

when a black bear snagged a shriveled

apple off a branch; and, waking out

of a black pool, I glimpsed how

fire creates its own weather

in rising pyrocumulus. Reaching

the ditch, I drop the gate: it's time

for the downhill pipes to fill,

time for bamboo at the house

to suck up water, time to see sunlight

flare between leaves before

the scorching edge of afternoon.

***

Entry tags:

life and stuff

Fragaria vesca

I planted two wild strawberry plants in my living room window box today :)

Last year I was lazy and didn't plant anything after the many herbs I had before all died (after I barely used most of them.) But this weekend I visited a botanical garden ~fair with a friend and she convinced me to get the strawberries, fingers crossed they'll grow and I can eat some. Apparently they can have fruits the whole summer.

I want to put some sage with the strawberries, and some flowers in the box of the window that is hard to open, and some herbs in the box on my kitchen window sill but I haven't decided yet which ones of parsley, chives, basil, and mint. Maybe all four will fit, even, if I can put them close together? Maybe I'll just go to the once-a-week-every-spring gardening stand nearby and see what they have/say.

Border Message

https://xkcd.com/3236/

Thanks to differences in logging regulations, the messages actually turned out to be visible from the air.

https://xkcd.com/3236/

Entry tags:

culture consumed

Things

Okay, well, three weeks behind is better than two months. Hi!

Books
Read T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Grace for the first time, and found it soothingly undemanding.

Listened to the audiobook of Rick Morton's Mean Streak, about Robodebt, on the strength of how excellent Morton's livetweeting was during the Royal Commission.

I found Mean Streak initially a bit hard going not just because of the awfulness of the subject matter (which I'd factored in) but because of Morton's extended literary riffs (in the first seven chapters, he draws detailed analogies with Heller's Catch-22, Kafka's The Trial, Borges' entire body of work, and Piranesi's Carceri.

Reading this as I was over Easter, I began to anticipate that any moment now he'd go "According to the Christian gospels, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by an uncaring bureaucracy. Do you know who else was crucified by an uncaring bureaucracy? Welfare recipients under Robodebt!" like a reverse youth pastor, but he never did, and eventually I came to understand the analogies as not an excessive and unnecessary stylistic choice but rather the last defences of a mind besieged by Lovecraftian horrors.

There was some levity, though: Morton and his publisher were obliged to allow some of their subjects to exercise their right of reply. He provided space for this as an appendix at the end of the book. There were no real surprises in the politicians' responses, just some unpleasant reminders for readers, e.g. Stuart Robert exists and is presumably the same species as us.

Kathryn Campbell's reply, however, was the funniest part of the whole (admittedly deadly serious) book. It was amazing.

Just knowing she paid her lawyers, plural, to draft and send this document to Morton's publishers for inclusion in his book, is such a wonderful reminder of the wide variety of people in this world.

Morton could not possibly have condemned her as harshly as her own self-defence did.

One of the allegations Campbell disputes, in this rebuttal which took 57 minutes 56 seconds for Rick Morton to read (the whole audiobook being 15 hours 32 minutes) is that she is a micromanager.

Another is that (as Morton stated) the commissioner said she "failed to address in any manner concerns about the illegality of income averaging, despite being aware of concerns about the illegality of the scheme".

Having already argued that Commissioner Holmes was wrong; and then that Commissioner Holmes' above finding was only the commissioner's opinion, not a finding of fact; she then felt the need to stipulate that Commissioner Holmes' wording was not "failed to address in any manner," it was "did nothing of substance".

She didn't say I didn't do anything at all, she said I did fuck all. Unless you correct the record to reflect that the Royal Commissioner's report into the worst public service fuckup of the century (so far) said that I did fuck all, not nothing at all, I'll sue you.

Ms Campbell either has never read Much Ado About Nothing (act IV, scene 2), or she did, and she took it as personal advice and unlike Dogberry had the power to ensure she was writ down an ass.

Currently reading: Sax Brightwell's Low Dawn and the audiobook of Rachel Neumeier's Tuyo.

Fandom
Posted a thing.

Crafts
Got around to packing up and sending another Sekrit Project.

Tech
Started watching a five hour YouTube video about data structures and algorithms, then (half an hour in) spent the evening making a number guessing game in Twine Harlowe, using binary search.

Next time I'll use Python or Javascript or something. I don't care that I don't know Javascript.

The problem is, I keep telling myself I'll just do a quick snack-sized learning activity on my phone, and Twine (or another thing I've tried recently, jsdares.com) will seem so convenient and then I'll be in a self-made hell of how unsuited their web-based interpreters are for mobile, ugh.

Garden
Bought some calendula seeds to sow.

Cats
Their previous favourite toy, the Mousie, is on stress leave: after some gastric issues it was eventually diagnosed with disembowelment.

I'm happy to say that Ash and Dory are welcoming the Mousie's substitute, the Birdie, with full lethal force.

How are you all?

Flotsam Plops

Posted by Jen

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/flotsam-plops-2026

The concept is simple: take an otherwise passable cake, and then stick a completely unrelated piece (or pieces) of plastic flotsam on it. Voila! Flotsam plop.

Oh, and when I say "completely unrelated," I mean "completely unrelated."

And lo, unto us a carrot cake is borne.
And high, we suspecteth the Wreckerator was. Eth.

Look, this carrot cake was doing just fine without divine accompaniment - so why the plastic angel pick? Did the Wreckerator think that was actually helping, or was s/he meeting some flotsam distribution quota?

Care to pick a pack of plops?

The migrating guitar herd strikes again.

Here's how you pander to fanboys and fangirls everywhere:

No, no, it's not a blue dog - it's a BAT dog. Sha-pow!

Plus, that upside-down bat logo tells us he sticks to the ceiling!

Bringing "downward facing dog" to new heights.

Perhaps you don't think these examples have been ridiculous enough, though. Nooo problem. What would you say to Dora the Explorer's head stuck in another doll cake's lap?

Go ahead. Try and imagine that's just the world's largest, creepiest belt buckle.

Personally, I'd say "Hola, Dora! S-O-C-K-S!" Because that's all the Spanish I know. I never learned what it means, though, so here's hoping it's not something dirty. (Although, frankly, that might be appropriate here.)

I have some thoughts about the snowman in the gal's lap behind Dora, too, but for all our sakes I'll leave that to you guys in the comments.

So, just how bad is the flotsam plop epidemic getting?

This bad:

Because even cake sold by-the-slice needs accessorizing.
And Superman beats everybody at bowling.

Katrina S., Lisa K., Dawn, Frzn D., & Jane D., "flotsam plops" is officially my new favorite phrase. Flotsamplopsflotsamplopsflotsamplops. Heehee!

*****

P.S. Here's one of the coolest gift ideas I've seen for a Batman fan, also works great for anniversities, aniverys, and bat mitzvahs. (See what I did there?))

Leather Bat Key Fob Case

How awesome is this?

*****

And from my other blog, Epbot:

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/flotsam-plops-2026

Entry tags:

in memoriam

Ny | Rubynye | MinoanMiss | browngirl's cause of death - COVID-19

Covid: Speaking Out About Rubynye by

werpiper on AO3.

Entry tags:

Words

For Wordy Wednesday, I present this poem which is choc-a-bloc with 'em.

“For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers” bY Reginald Dwayne Betts

For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers,
green roses, chrysanthemums, lilies: retrophilia,
philocaly, philomath, sarcophilous—all this love,
of the past, of beauty, of knowledge, of flesh; this is
catalogue & counter: philalethist, negrophile, neophile.
A negro man walks down the street, taps Newport
out against a brick wall & stares at you. Love
that: lygophilia, lithophilous. Be amongst stones,
amongst darkness. We are glass house. Philopornist,
philotechnical. Why not worship the demimonde?
Love that—a corner room, whatever is not there,
all the clutter you keep secret. Palaeophile,
ornithophilous: you, antiquarian, pollinated by birds.
All this a way to dream green rose petals on the bed you love;
petrophilous, stigmatophilia: live near rocks, tattoo hurt;
for you topophilia: what place do you love? All these words
for love (for you), all these ways to say believe
in symphily, to say let us live near each other.

I've begged god for the remedy, but I'm no longer sure. I should have known not to give in...

It's Wednesday! We're halfway through the week! I am a little less sleepy today, which is nice. I've not quite made up my sleep debt yet from the last couple of nights, but it's definitely better.

Work yesterday was quite busy, but I'll admit, I loafed a little bit in my tiredness. A, the head of the call center, was having a bad day, so I was talking to her a good chunk of it. That woman needs a vacation in the worst way. It's just been a bear of a month for her. New health diagnosis, the phones have been psycho, we're switching our telephone systems tomorrow, and then the whole thing with the Bethesda office has been a fucking mess. I'm trying to talk her into taking a week off and go sit somewhere on a beach, or in the mountains and just relax and dissconnect. She's a great boss, so I'd hate to lose her to burnout. I still did some other work, but mostly I was trying to convince her to put her own oxygen mask on first. I will definitely be texting her pictures of vacation in an attempt to help relax her while I'm gone.

After work, I promptly gagged on a pill and felt nauseous the rest of the night. It was not fun. I have soup and plain chicken skewers for breakfast, as I just couldn't take more than a spoonful of soup. Feeling much better today. As with all my new digestive foibles, I'm blaming them on Mounjaro.

Today, I shall do work, and then cook dinner. I've been looking forward to the halibut for days, so I'm definitely going to cook it tonight before it goes off. Then, I shall nap again.

Tomorrow, we get our new telephony system. It's a VOIP, so they're insisting that all our connections are wired. This is going to mean running a ton of ethernet cable from the kitchen to the living room. I guess that'll get done tonight as well, so I'm up and running tomorrow morning. I'm fairly sure that this rollout is going to be a shitshow, but we'll see. We're the 4th rollout, so we'll see if they've learned from their errors. Supposedly they did figure out how to trigger pop ups with patient information, so that's something. The customer puts in their phone # and DOB, and as it works now, the system cross references the two, and will throw up a pop up with their info, that we then will verify. When the pt is new, or mistypes their info, we'll get a blank pop up. Those are the times when you're really praying that the caller doesn't have a thick accent. When they do, I spend a lot of time praying for a name I know how to spell. Shah, Nguyen,Patel, Li, Sanchez please. And if it's not, please let them be pleasant. I know how much it sucks to have to spell your name repeatedly every time, but work with me here. After that, I'm sure I'll be exhausted, so we'll see if I fix anything for dinner.

Tomorrow will be exactly 14 days til vacation. And Saturday, we might get our boarding passes! It's very exciting. It's still surreal. It's been so long since we had a proper vacation that ut feels unreal. There's a great song in the Lost Boys Musical called "skip to the good part," and that's where I am with vacation. I want to skip ahead to the vacation and get to do all the things I've been planning since last April. We have so many adventures to go on, and I want all of them.

I saw a video of some whales returning to Alaska for the season, which made me happy. We may not see hummpbacks, but the killer whales are back, and I'm more excited about them. I have seen Shamu, in his tiny pool, but I want to see one wild and free. And I want to take the White Pass train up into the mountains and see all the amazing scenery. And I want to walk Creek Street and maybe visit a historic brothel. I want to buy ALL the souvenirs. My bag is definitely going to be overweight, though. I might need to invest in a second carry on suitcase to keep it under weight. Or use the one we have. We'll see. I kind of want one of the cool ones that have a fold up cup holder. Then I'd be able to pack one of my coats in there and save me some weight. The limit is 50lbs and I'm already at 43, so there could be more wiggle room.

We have laundry service on the boat, but the bags are very tiny, so I want to bring at least 6-7 days of clothing, plus cold weather gear. I will do some looking and see what I can find. The one we have is an Amazon Basic, and it is indeed very basic.

Might be time to get rid of what we had. I'm sure that one of the thrift shops would take it. They were great when we were driving to Disney, less so when we're flying. We'll see what we end up with. I also could then pack our emergency meds in the carry out. My standard meds will be in my personal item, but I ordered an emergency pack from a company called Jase. For a fee, they'll make up a personalized kit of medication for travel. It's various antibiotics, anti nausea, antifungal and cortisone cream to cover any medical emergency. Since cruise medical care is ridiculously expensive, it's a little peace of mind that I'm covered if my tooth starts acting up again, or if anyone has any problems. I was going to put it in my checked bag, but if I take a roller bag, I'll probably put it in there.

I'll see what the options are for something that will get to me before we leave.

I've downloaded SO many books for the flight. I have the RSS feed of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books on my dreamwidth, so I get a ton of recs for books that are on sale, or even on kindle unlimited. I was trying to wait to read any of them, but I started one called Dreadful that seems pretty good so far. I've got books by both Ursula Vernon and John Scalzi, so that'll be good. And for Jess, I think the new Murderbot book comes out on 5/5. I've already preordered that for them. Something to read on the flights if you can't sleep.

The flights are the part I'm not looking forward to. 3 hours in the BWI terminal, plus another 6 hours in the air, assuming everything is on time. When we land, it'll already be 1pm our time, but only 10am in PST.

The first day is going to be a lot. We'll be getting up by 2:30am and not laying down til nearly midnight our time. We're all going to be falling asleep in our steak dinner.

One of the people from the Facebook group reached out to me about doing dinner the Friday before we get on the cruise, so we might be doing an early dinner with them before going to the movies. We'll see how organized we can get in 2 weeks. He's really nice, so I'd be okay with that. When I mentioned going with my spouse, referring to them as they/them, he reached out to let me know that Holland America does Pride meet ups, usually on the first night of the cruise. He's traveling with people from his softball team.

I'm really looking forward to both Pike Place Market and the Granville Island Public Market. It looks like they have some cool stuff and good food. Mostly good food.

Okay, time to go forth and get ready for work. Everyone have an absolutely outstanding Wednesday!

Protagonist has just met up with his estranged mother, who left him as a baby

and her excuse is "Your father and I both agreed that it was best to raise you away from my wealthy-but-toxic family, whom I was returning to". And having met the protagonist's half-siblings, I can't say that this was wrong - but what, she just loved him so much more than her younger two that she had with her new, richer, more socially acceptable husband? No matter how you look at it, she's not exactly winning the mother of the year award.

**********************************

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

Daily Happiness

1. Today was my first day back at work at the office. Lots of meetings and not a lot else, but since I did all my catching up yesterday, that was fine. I'm planning to work from home tomorrow (and maybe Thursday?).

2. I asked Carla to make hummus for me today while I was at work, since I usually make some on the weekend to have for weekday lunches but hadn't gotten to it, and she did make it for me, but also first mistakenly opened a can of pinto beans instead of chickpeas, so she made refried beans and we had that with some more tacos for dinner as there's still plenty of carnitas and fresh tortillas from yesterday, and they were both delicious and the perfect amount for two servings. (Though we still have more taco fixings, so if there had been more, we could have finished them up later this week.)

3. There was a decent chance of rain today but it pretty much didn't rain. No rain at all in Gardena where I was, and Carla said there was a little dampness on the ground mid day but that was it. I really have had enough to rain for now, so I'm glad.

4. I spotted Tuxie in an unusual place the other day (in the neighbors' front yard). He seemed startled to see me, too, lol.

Entry tags:

Kubla Khan as epic

A nice thing about being unable to focus is that I also can't focus on being miserable. Case in point: after a truly incomparable series of missed appointments and scheduling errors yesterday, I sat down wretchedly this morning, in true anxiety about my mnemonic capacity, to see if I could at least still recall two touchstone poems memorized in high school: Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, ("Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds") and "Kubla Khan".

The choice of sonnet is a bit mysterious to me now (the craft is exquisite; the marriage never materialized), but "Kubla Khan" makes perfect sense.

Writing it out again (all except the bit about the bouncing rocks in the middle, where I get hopelessly lost and always have) I could not help looking at "Kubla Khan" this time with my own fixations in mind, and before I knew it I had forgotten my forgetfuless and was happily sloshing around in the sacred river Alph.

( Anyway, some thoughts on Kubla Khan as it might fit into the epics course, interspersed with the Poem Itself )

The poem, sans interruptions, can be read here.

§rf§

Current Mood: grieving
Current Music: Hey, everybody, got a favor to ask: shut the fuck up and put on your mask!

Entry tags:

gnu minoanmiss

Ny | Rubynye | MinoanMiss | browngirl's cause of death - COVID-19

Covid: Speaking Out About Rubynye by

werpiper.

Entry tags:

write every day

Write Every Day: Day 21

Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

Note: I'll be away from email for the next two days, so check-in posts will go up a couple hours later than usual. If that proves inconveniently late for you, just go ahead and drop your check-in on the most recent post whenever is convenient for you. (Just make it clear what day you're checking in for!)

My check-in: ~~No writing yet! A little later this evening, I hope!~~ I wrote a long chatty email to my cousin. It counts if I say it counts!

Day 21:

sanguinity

Day 20:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 19:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: switching btwn the Mets and the hockey

Entry tags:

a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes

I logged off yesterday around 4:30 and started the process of making whipped ganache, and as per usual, the amount of time it takes to get the temperature of the ganache down to 75°F is RIDICULOUS even when I put the bowl on the window sill with the window open (there is a screen) and a cold breeze coming in. I guess the one good part about how long it took was that I was able to make and eat dinner in the middle of it, so I didn't have to do the whole thing hungry. Then I loaded those dishes into the dishwasher and started separating eggs to make vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. And got some yolk in with the whites so had to start over. And then cracked an egg and it was frozen, so unusable for my purposes.

I did eventually get 4 egg whites in a bowl with a cup of sugar and set it over the pot of simmering water so I could whisk it until it heated to 160°F because aside from my own fear of salmonella, the whole point here was to celebrate my pregnant co-worker so I absolutely needed to make sure everything was safe. It's always amazing to me how they double in size as you whisk and heat them and eventually they hit the temp, so I whipped them into stiff peaks (not by hand), which took about twice the amount of time it normally does (physics! always working against me!), but did eventually happen. All was well as I added in the butter, but then I added the vanilla bean paste (gotta have the specks!) and it curdled. So I had to reheat it to melting, chill it, and whip it while adding another 1/4 cup of butter, but it did eventually whip up beautifully. Both frostings piped like a dream, too, since they were not cold. Pics are here. And they were much appreciated by my co-workers! At the end of the day, when I went into the lunchroom to put the leftovers in the fridge, I found someone packing them up to take home. She was like, did you want them? And I was like, no, I was just going to put them in the fridge for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure she did not know I was the person who made them, but that's okay.

Work itself was fine - we spent most of our team meeting eating cupcakes while everyone else talked about their cats - but I was 3/4 of the way there this morning when I realized I'd left my ID badge in my old bag (I got a new bag for work recently, and used it for the first time today, and I think I like it. It is quite large but the strap is the perfect length for a large crossbody, imo), but thankfully they have guest ID cards so I was able to go about my day without interruption. I did make myself a note to remember my ID card next month when I go in. (well, unless there is a LIRR strike, but there probably won't be.)

***

Today's poem:

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

—Ellen Bass, from Mules of Love, 2002.

***