ewein2412

1. Well, I was expecting to just WFH and go to the nearby store for a bit, but I got a message in the morning that the person I wanted to talk to at the store had called out sick, so I ended up going to Gardena instead, which worked out as I did have a meeting in the afternoon and some stuff to do that was easier to do from the office than from home.

2. Yet another Santa Ana is blowing through and the weather is suuuuuper dry. I do prefer dry to humid, but I wish we would get more of something in between. The high temps for this weekend's accompanying hot spell are not supposed to be as high as last weekend's, though, so that's good.

3. Carla got the most amazing picture of Ollie yesterday. Look at that little mouth!!

rolanni

Thursday. Sunny and chill. The cats are sitting in the sliders in Steve's office, squirrel watching. Am sitting in the comfy chair in my office. Drinking a cup of Darjeeling, I think, (edited to add: It was Lapsang Souchung) and basking in the happy lite.

I find that I really don't have much to say this morning. I'm going to go get breakfast and hide inside my story.

How's everybody doing?

Dictated to my phone
#
Worked. Made stirfry for lunch. Scrubbled cats. Have a few things to clean up in the business office, need to wash the pots 'n pans, and do one's duty to the cats.

Then I believe I shall go back to Steve's office and recover the old, ill-tempered GNOME-based system, because COSMIC? Is not ready for prime time. I hate it that stuff gets released when it doesn't work, and by "doesn't work" I mean -- surely, the primary use of a computer is to handle files? I means, yes, they also do math, and play music, and host games, but these things are also file-based.

I see No Benefit to ... anyone ... in a computer system that can't reliably cope with its own files. So -- big step back for me, and fingers crossed that the recovery process is fairly seamless.

In other news, not content to nag me to sell my house, now there are people who want to buy my car. Given a new Forester costs on the order of +/-$40grand and I'm being offered +/-$27grand for my current Forester -- I don't see the appeal, aside having a new car, and it happens I ain't jonesing for a new car right now.

For those keeping score, the snow is melting fast under the sun and (cold) breeze. I had a go at smashing up the ice in the driveway yesterday, which, among other things, is pretty good therapy. However, I will not be so indulging myself today, because I really can't afford for my back to go out again.

I have not today seen the news, but I don't suppose we've jumped to a better timeline. Call me a pessimist.

I think that's all I've got.

Hope y'all are having a good day.
#
I've been having a fascinating discussion with System76 Tech Support, who assures me that COSMIC is functional for many of their users, and incorporates all of the things those users depend on, which -- it boggles my brain, but I Am Only A Writer, and this thing is barely doing anything that I need and depend on.

Apparently, however, the ability to order one's own desktop is not a top-tier "feature." They're still working on that one and should have it ready by June.

In the meantime, the recovery ... didn't, so I'm kinda stuck. Happily, I am from the Past and still have access to sneaker-net. But it is kinda off-putting that I can't backup my day's work to the portable drive (in addition to Dropbox), because while I can see the damned thing in the margin, when I hit Copy Files To -- it disappears.

*throws hands in air* *catches them*

Anyhoots. I did work today. Tomorrow morning, Sarah comes to clean, and sometime tomorrow my first delivery from CookUnity will arrive.

Exciting times.

Everybody have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow.
#
Squeak, squeak, squeak.

Tech Support sent me a restore file, which I flashed to a thumb-drive and booted from and!

I'm back!

And all of my files are intact!

Cabana boy! Wine!

And a glass!

kenjari

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear
by Seanan McGuire

This short novel is the 10th in the Wayward Children series. Here we get the backstory of Nadya, one of the secondary characters who appears in earlier books. We get to find out more about Belyyreka, the watery world she entered, and what brought her there. It's a very lovely story about finding one's place and one's people. McGuire also beautifully explores some themes around physical disability and agency. I really loved how the story tackled some serious stuff while remaining restful and affirming. Plus, I really liked Nadya and how she maintained her sense of wholeness even in environments that insisted otherwise.

Current Mood: hungry

thistleingrey

I've learned what I can from the heavily modified slipover that I knitted and re-knitted all through the past two months. Because the recent absence of a subcutaneous pain-mesh layer has coincided with thermoregulation's partial return to service, I no longer want a personally sized blanket layer in sport-weight wool/alpaca. I've bound it off, both to keep as a measurement reference and because the yarn wouldn't survive further reuse.

( non-knitting digression )

Thinking through some incidents has been aided considerably by working with yarn bought when my skin first felt oddly cold. I've used it recently as a memory prop, then undone the deliberately false start and restarted the project with different yarn. As part of the process, I've finally recovered the skeins that were reused to become about half of a Little Wave cardigan, then abandoned when I realized that the pattern's proportions and mine would never agree. Instead, I'm meditating upon Capsa.

Thanks, long-ago clearance-discounted yarn, oddly too heavy for past me to crochet, for taking good care of me.

I've tried the first few rows of a swatch for New Terrain in Lavold Hempathy yarn---old, if not as old as the yarn meant first for the blanket I couldn't crochet. Perhaps my 2019 hands could've managed it, but my current hands will need a bit of wool in the yarn blend to keep those slipped stitches even. Hempathy is cotton/hemp/rayon, with no bounce/spring to it.

Yamagara's New Terrain interests me because its shoulder-yoke is constructed similarly to that of the Sundial tee, except that Yamagara is actually competent at designing patterns with carefully considered details---all the finishing touches that Sundial's designer (Wool and Pine) tends to skip. As a fallback, I could make a version of New Terrain without the terrain, plain across the torso, if the slipped stitches and my hands can't agree at all.

poliphilo

That was a mild winter. But very wet.

And now I'm moving into my lighter clothes- though in the expectation- but not the hope- that I may have to revert from time to time. The sunny weather makes me want to be doing things in the garden, but only things that aren't too arduous. Yesterday I surprised myself by proposing a visit to Hilliers- the garden centre on the further side of Stone Cross.

Also yesterday a bumble bee got into the bedroom and had to be helped to escape. Bumble bees have been active for a week or more now. Bumble bees are precious......

tamaranth

2026/033: Mercutio — Kate Heartfield

Mercutio has never been in love. Not unless you count a boy whose face he can barely remember. Not unless you count the world. [loc. 2328]

Mercutio Guertio (yes, that Mercutio) meets Dante Alighieri at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289: they are caught in a freak storm -- where they glimpse spectral armies, and becomes certain that there is a third man with them -- but stumble back to the carnage of the battlefield, and subsequently become friends. Mercurio, though, has been changed: he sees people who are not there, and does not recognise the stars in the night sky. Then Dante, grieving the death of 'his' Beatrice, is pulled into Faerie, where he wanders in a dark wood...

( Read more... )

Current Mood: impressed

poliphilo

I moved to raise the blind.

"You'll like what you see." said Ailz, who had already looked out the window in the spare bedroom.

And I did. The moon, just a shavng past the full, was hovering over the hills. In the light of the rising sun its colour was a very pale apricot.

"Did you arrange that just for me?" I said.....

conuly

(or ever) but I also don't want to not do it, so here we are I guess?

In order to make this a normal post, let me say that my Robert Moses counter is incrementing up again. It has now been 0 hours since the last time somebody brought up Robert Moses, but it's my fault for reading an article about walkable cities and then scrolling to the comments.

********

( Read more... )

troisoiseaux

Read Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I was not expecting to start with the fall of Troy?? (Only briefly mentioned as a sort of city, state, country, continent, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy approach to setting the scene of Arthur's Britain, but I did find myself momentarily baffled about whether I'd opened the correct e-book.) Interesting to finally read the poem after having seen/read various retellings/adaptations of it— for one thing, it turns out the answer to why would Gawain jump straight to "chop this guy's head off" when presented with the challenge of "whatever blow you deal now, I'll return in one year's time"? is because the challenge was, in fact, set up that way. (Of course, even with the Green Knight kneeling and helpfully baring his neck and making unsubtle comments like I'll tell you where to find me in a year's time afterwards... if I can! If not, you're off the hook!, he could have not done that, but I guess it's a load-bearing detail of Arthuriana that absolutely no one can see a trap when they're about to walk into one or else no one would have weird adventures.) For another: ohhhhh, okay, the OT3 reading is not a stretch of the imagination at all. It also spent more time describing food, clothing, armor, horses' gear, castle architecture, and other luxuries than I would have expected - on the other hand, it also spent quite a lot of time on how to disembowel a deer?? - and each stanza ended with an ABABA rhyme scheme, although I guess in this case, we are not meant to pronounce Gawain as Gar-win—

'What is here, all is your own, to have in your rule
and sway.'
'Gramercy!' quoth Gawain,
'May Christ you this repay!'
As men that to meet were fain
they both embraced that day.

Later, it also rhymes Gawain with retain, so I guess the pronunciation is supposed to be "Ga-wayne," which is frankly how I always assumed it was pronounced, until The Green Knight (2021)...?

In War and Peace, Dolokhov (of the "just fought a duel over sleeping with Pierre's wife" incident) has fallen in love with - and proposed to - Sonya, the poor Rostov cousin/ward who is in love with Nikolai but (spoiler!) he ends up jilting her for Princess Mary, and Sonya ends up never marrying and moves in with them to care for their children. ANYWAY. We are not there yet; Dolokhov has proposed to Sonya, Sonya refused out of love for Nikolai, and Dolokhov proceeded to take his revenge by needling Nikolai into gambling himself into financial ruin, because Nikolai has the backbone of a chocolate eclair as well as one (1) singular brain cell just bouncing around thinking about how much he loves Emperor Alexander.

Current Music: Íorónta - Chasing Abbey

torachan

1. Did another store visit today. I hadn't been to this store for quite some time (I think not since the summer) so it was nice to have an opportunity to check it out again, and just in general to get out of the office and do something different. Tomorrow I plan to do a store visit, too, but just the store down the street from me, so at least there won't be a long drive involved.

2. Carla made miso marinated salmon for dinner tonight, which we haven't had in ages. I forgot how good it is!

3. Carla got some Brooks shoes a few months ago and has really been enjoying them and then it turns out that they occasionally release Disney collabs, and their most recent ones include Rapunzel themed ones. Rapunzel is one of her favorite Disney characters and pink and purple are some of her favorite colors. Plus they actually have them in larger sizes, which is so rare for cute shoes like these. They were released to buy in person at the runDisney event in Disney World this past weekend and just finally showed up on the website today and she was able to order some. And in this instance having larger feet actually worked in her favor, since a lot of the smaller sizes were sold out already.

4. The other day after I got the new shelf set up in the garage, Carla put a couple Star Wars legos on it, and then decided she wanted it to be a Star Wars themed shelf (I was already thinking we should organize some of the lego displays since right now they're just sort of wherever we had space at the time they were built, rather than displayed thematically, so that works out perfectly). It's still in progress, but I think it looks pretty nice. (And I really do love that shelf.)

5. Tuxie's been enjoying the long grass we have after all the rain last month.

rolanni

What went before: Wednesday. Sunny and cold. Snowed a couple in on the overnight and today the beans are calling for temps near 50F.

My lap is Cat Central at the moment with Tali and Firefly, bumping, purring, prancing, and putting my tea in peril.

The plan for today is to write, write the small breaks for chores and meals. I really really want to get this book done.

What's everybody doing today?

Dictated with some difficulty to my phone
#
Firefly, Queen of the Toys

#
I have Done Work. I'm not how much work, because I am now entering the squishy bit of the narrative, where I was just writing stuff down to hit a stopping point.

Tomorrow, I think I need to go back and mumblemumble, which will in theory help me to see the firm ground to the Real The End.

In the meantime, Steve's computer is upgrading to COSMIC DESKTOP, which is reported less quarrelsome than GNOME. Not that I've noticed GNOME being particularly quarrelsome, but I'm not a developer or a programmer, and System 76 does all the quarreling on their side of the transaction before ever it gets to me.

The cats are politely rampaging all over my office, in a gentle attempt to point out that it is Happy Hour.

Spoiler: It is not.

God She knows how we're going to weather the time change. P'rhaps I'll lock myself in the basement at 4 pm.

And so glad to hear, as I emerge from a day of staring at words, that congress doesn't care to stop the little man from burning the earth. So I guess that's fine, then.

Sigh.

Everybody stay safe. I'll check in tomorrow.

I hate this timeline.
#
Oh, dear. So not a fan of COSMIC, which has sorted my desktop files into a configuration that possibly makes sense to it, but does not make sense to me, and -- I can't reorder them. This is not only Not Cool, but it's actively upsetting. I need to have the files in a Certain Place that makes sense to me.

Sigh.

Also, I lost my cool wallpaper, which is a shame, but not fatal.

Have written to System76 Support. They're gonna love me, over at Support.

poliphilo

Picture Diary 124

1. Occlusion

vO1HwWWFDq1ZCSXM4wLh--0--fei7j_4x-real-esrgan-x4-plus.jpeg

2. Flier

vX0ccoSlzMIW19cXiKpw--0--0crbm_4x-real-esrgan-x4-plus.jpeg

3. Promised land

4. The forbidden room

5. Blood moon

6. We try to possess things we don't understand

poliphilo

Picture Diary 123

1. We're through

2. Inner sanctum

3. The dome

4. It almost looks real

5. Playing the game

6. Translucent

tamaranth

2026/032: Maria — Michelle Moran

Dear Mr Hammerstein,
It may come as a surprise that I am writing to you, as it appears that the theater industry believes I am dead and can now make up whatever they wish about me... [opening line]

I read this for the prompt 'based on the top-grossing movie in the year of your birth'. Set in 1959, it's a novel about Maria von Trapp and her response to the forthcomming stage musical of 'The Sound of Music': her letter informs Hammerstein that she has 'several ideas about how the script can be fixed'. Hammerstein -- already ill with the stomach cancer that would kill him within a year -- is too busy (and possibly too nervous) to talk to her, so instead his secretary Fran has a series of conversations with Maria.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: calm

osprey_archer

A wild episode of Books I’ve Abandoned appears! I kept on slogging through Maeve Binchy’s A Few of the Girls on the grounds that it’s a short story collection and therefore might eventually cough up a story I like, but finally decided it was just too many downer stories about people in bad friendships and bad marriages and bad adulterous relationships.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Getting my St. Patrick’s Day on with Eve Bunting’s St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning, which I actually picked up on account of the illustrator, Jan Brett. This was one of Brett’s earliest books and the publishers clearly gave her a very limited palette to work with, just black and white and yellow and green (and a yellow saturated to the point of orange for the Irish flag). She does the best with what she has, but how fortunate for us all she has more colors to work with in her later books!

But her characteristic attention to detail is still visible here: the stone walls in the green fields, the multitude of toothsome sweets in the Mrs. Simms’ Half-Way-Up Sweetshop, the sleepy boy and his sleepy dog curled up in the rocking chair once they’ve walked all the way up Acorn Mountain and all the way back in their very own St. Patrick’s Day parade.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve begun E. Nesbit’s The Wouldbegoods, and am happy to report I find the Bastables much less stressful than the children in The Phoenix and the Carpet, possibly because the Bastables don’t have a magic carpet that might just strand them in Outer Mongolia. Capable of getting up to plenty of mischief without magical aid however! They are about to fill a lock to float a barge, under the impression that this will be a good deed, but I strongly suspect that the barge is simply going to float away downstream.

What I Plan to Read Next

My coworker lent me John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis.

poliphilo

Picture Diary 122

1. Tidings of great joy

2. Self-created

3. Temple of souls

4. Talking about my generation

5. Where are we going? Why?

6. Wish you were here

poliphilo

A few weeks back Nightcafe- the site I go to to make AI images- said it couldn't afford to go on being so nice to its free users so it was going to cancel all the credits we'd amassed.

(To be fair to NC they have always been very generous with credits- awarding them for all sorts of reasons- and at the time of their mean decision I had something like 2,500 in the bank. To be fair to myself I'd plead that I'm a hobbyist not a professional and I'm not making any money from my work)

Whoops, I thought, I'd better use up all these credits fast.

So I went on an AI binge, making pictures much faster than I chose to post them here- with the result that there's a backlog.

Which I now mean to clear

And that's why the next few posts will be Picture Diaries....

Eventually Nightcafe realised it was making itself very unpopular and decided we could keep our credits after all- and they'd discriminate against us in other ways, like making us wait longer to have our prompts processed, which I'm not going to shout about because it's fair that people who pay for the service should enjoy some privileges.

Anyway, bear with me while I get myself up to date.....

sabotabby

It feels very strange and unpleasant to be making my regular book post under the circumstances. Nevertheless.

Just finished: A Drop Of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. This was so much fun, and I'm hooked on the series. It's mostly a lighthearted absolutely nightmare fuel cosmic horror murder mystery, but as the afterword says, it's also kind of a commentary on fantasy's obsession with kings and nobles and what this means for our present political circumstances. Which is to say. Kings. Not a great idea. I disagree with Bennett re: what ASOIaF was trying to do but the book is a great example of how you can smuggle interesting politics in a rip-roaring narrative.

Currently reading: Lullabies For Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. I love everything she writes and meant to read her most well-known work ages ago but it ended up near the bottom of my physical TBR stack and I'm only now getting to it. This is the story of Baby, a little girl in Montreal whose father is a possibly-schizophrenic heroin addict. Does that sound depressing? Because it is. It's also very much a dark comedy, like it's genuinely fucking hilarious the more searingly awful Baby's life gets. Sometimes I just want fiction to fuck me up, and this does.

poliphilo

I dreamed there was a crow lying on the lawn. Maybe it was sick or dying. Anyway I picked it up and carried it around on my shoulder. And maybe it wasn't a crow but a raven or something even bigger. It was friendly and let me stroke its horny beak. Then it wasn't there any longer. At the same time exotic birds we'd never seen before were coming to the bird feeder- parrots, parakeets, multi-coloured finches.....

Yeah, I get it. Out with the old and in with the new. Let the old go with a blessing....

torachan

1. My old Microsoft Sculpt mouse was showing a lot of wear so I decided to check out other mice to see if there's some currently in production ergonomic mouse I could switch to instead, since the Sculpt has not been made for many years and I just have to buy whatever ones second hand sellers are still selling, and the price keeps going up and up. I decided to try the Logitech Lift, but I'm not sure it's right for me. The fit in my hand is so weird and just from using it a little tonight, I'm getting pain in my wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Not sure if getting used to it will fix that, but I'll try it at least one more day and see. The good news is that by switching mice I found what was preventing my PC from properly going into sleep mode! Apparently it was the Sculpt mouse! As soon as I switch the new mouse, it went to sleep after being idle for a few minutes. Before, it would act like it was going to sleep, but pop the screen back on immediately. Carla found some threads about this issue on reddit, so if I do go back to the Sculpt, hopefully I can fix the sleep issue.

If anyone has recs for ergo mice similar to the Sculpt in shape, let me know! It seems most ergo mice are more like the Lift in shape.

2. Molly looks so majestic!

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In which the squeaky wheel gets the worm

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2026/033: Mercutio — Kate Heartfield

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Picture Diary 124

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2026/032: Maria — Michelle Moran

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