vital functions

Dec. 7th, 2025 10:45 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

(Last week's also now exists and is no longer a placeholder!)

Reading. Pain, Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen. I want to be very, very clear: unless you are specifically researching attitudes and beliefs in pain clinics in early 2020s England, or similar, do not read this book. There are bad history and no references, appalling opinions on patients (), quite possibly the worst hyphenation choice I have ever seen, stunning omissions and misrepresentations of pain science, and It's Weird That It Happened Twice soup metaphors. Fuller review (or at least annotated bibliography entry) to follow, maybe.

Some further progress on Florencia Clifford's Feeding Orchids to the Slugs ("Tales from a Zen kitchen"), which I acquired from Oxfam in a moment of weakness primarily for EYB purposes at a point when it was extremely discounted. It is primarily a somewhat disjointed memoir for which I am not the target audience, but hey, Books To Go Back In The Charity Shop Pile but that I wouldn't actually hate reading were exactly the goal, so that's a victory. Mostly. I'm a little over halfway through it, sticking book darts on pages that contain recipes for easier reference when I go back through on the actual indexing pass.

I absolutely needed something that was not going to make me furious and furthermore that was not going to be demanding, and there's a new one in the series, so I have now reread several Scalzi: Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades completed, The Lost Colony in progress.

I've also had a very quick flick through the mentions of Descartes in Joanna Bourke's The Story of Pain, which is my next Pain Book. She does better than everyone else I've read, but I still think she's misinterpreting Treatise on Man. (Why do I have strongly-held opinions on Descartes now. CAN I NOT.)

Playing. Inkulinati, Monument Valley )

Cooking. SOUP.

smitten kitchen's braised chickpeas with zucchini and pesto, two batches thereof, because I had promised A burrata to go with and then (1) the supermarket was out of it and (2) the opened part-pack of feta wound up doing two days quite comfortably, so the second batch was required For Burrata Purposes.

I have also established that the pistachio croissant strata works very well in one of the loaf tins if you scale it down to 50% quantities because there were only 3 discount croissants at the supermarket (... because you had to wait and watch the person who got there JUST ahead of you taking Most Of Them...), which also conveniently used up the dregs of the cream that I had in the fridge.

Eating. Tagine out the freezer (thank you past Alex). Relatively fresh dried apple. A very plain lunch at Teras in Seydikemer, which was apparently the magic my digestive system needed to settle itself down! And I am very much enjoying my dark chocolate raspberry stars. :)

(no subject)

Dec. 7th, 2025 09:55 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
DEAR HARRIETTE: I have twin sons who are in college at different schools. They are good kids but a bit young for their age. I don't think either of them has ever dated. I have always taught them that they should have enough money to take a woman out on a date, and right now they aren't working. I offered to give them some cash to help them in case they do want to take someone on a date, but so far neither has taken me up on it. Have I done something wrong as a mother? Why are they so delayed? -- Arrested Development

Read more... )

(no subject)

Dec. 7th, 2025 09:49 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Care and Feeding,

My sister openly doesn’t like me (and has said so publicly and directly), though we manage well enough for family events. I get along with my brother and his wife, but they are horrible at communication and interact with my sister more frequently. My dad gets along with all of us and is good at communication, but lives in denial of all weird family dynamics.

Around every holiday season or major family function, I get left out of crucial information regarding plans, transportation, emergency changes, etc. One consistent hurdle: Brother or Dad tells Sister something and assumes she will pass it on to me, and she doesn’t. I have explicitly told them both to stop doing this, and they just forget, leaving me scrambling when they ask why I haven’t RSVP’d/contributed to a group gift/etc. On the flip side, neither of my siblings is particularly good about getting back to me when I reach out to them, so asking directly doesn’t help either. (Brother and his wife are notoriously bad at responses with everyone, so it’s not personal, just frustrating.) One workaround I’ve discovered is to ask Dad to reach out on my behalf, because that guarantees an actual response, but it’s irritating that I have to resort to that to get basic information like, “What time do you expect me to arrive at your house?” Is there anything I can do to make this easier?

—It’s Mean Girls Meets Finding Dory


Read more... )

some good things (a post)

Dec. 6th, 2025 11:28 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Breakfast in bed, accompanied by completing my first ever playthrough of the main body of Monument Valley. I think I wound up getting two prompts from A, who also spent a significant chunk of the afternoon attempting to get it working on two different large-format touchscreen devices -- I'd been struggling with the trackpad, and was gratified when A reported that they'd had a go at playing the very first level with a trackpad and it really was kind of wretched. (Made it to approximately halfway through Appendix 1 before deciding I needed to call it for the day...)
  2. smitten kitchen's braised chickpeas with zucchini and pesto continues fantastic.
  3. 'tis The Season for my current Favourite Chocolate (I'm not sure if it's available year-round but the company we get groceries from only carries them during the winter, and I honestly probably enjoy them more because of the Seasonal Availability). I am writing this post with one of them + a mug of warm milk.
  4. The box of meds I dropped in an airport this Monday gone has successfully been picked up! First step in a pass-the-parcel that will hopefully conclude weekend after next...
  5. Got a substantial increase on my highest score in one of the silly clicky games in Flight Rising :)

Update to a fustercluck

Dec. 6th, 2025 12:59 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
[Originally posted in chat; I have added paragraphs for readability]

My brother has organized an ill-advised surprise party for my father's 75th birthday.

Our father is a complete introvert and also very exacting. He likes things to be a certain way, and gets tense and angry if everything is not perfectly to his taste. He hates loud places and large groups of people. Unfortunately, he's always used excessive alcohol to handle social engagements and gets belligerent when drunk.

Because of all of this, I was surprised when my brother, "James" told me that he'd planned a surprise birthday party of 30 guests for my dad at a new restaurant. The guest list includes the following extremely awkward confirmed attendees: our aunt (dad's semi-estranged sister) who is an overbearing religious fanatic none of us can stand; our mother (dad's ex-wife) who is resented by our dad and hated by our aforementioned aunt because of the divorce; and a number of neighbors who our dad has been feuding with off and on for the last 20 years.

I asked my mom why she was going along with this and she said James called in a big favor she owed him and she felt like she couldn’t say no, so he’s pulling out all the stops to make this happen.

I don't know how James could possibly think this is a good idea, except that he has a huge ego and believes this will be some fairy tale reunion where everyone will suddenly make nice. I don't mean that James is a bad guy but he has a tendency to steamroll over people and do things "for their own good." Every argument I've made against this party has prompted him to lecture me and act like he knows so much better because he's 7 years older than me.

It's true that my Dad can be difficult but I don't want him to feel ambushed on his birthday. If James keeps refusing to cancel should I warn my dad? Or do I just kick back with a glass of wine and watch the drama unfold?


response and update )

quick note re bookshop.org

Dec. 5th, 2025 11:58 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Previously: uk.bookshop.org were selling a Tor ebook with DRM applied, which I only noticed after I had bought it, because all? Tor ebooks? are DRM-free? at the request of the publisher? Like, Hive applies DRM to them, but given that bookshop.org lets you filter for DRM-free, this... was surprising.

My initial support request for (1) an explanation and (2) any chance of a refund, realise this is totally on me though, ... got me an almost-immediate refund, which I was not expecting, and a very entry-level explanation of What DRM Is, which I sort of was. So I wrote back saying thank you very much, and also, Tor went famously DRM-free in about 2012, and they're definitely supplying this specific ebook to other retailers without DRM applied.

There was A Pause.

A day or two later I received a response from someone with "Senior" in their signature, thanking me for my patience and saying they were Investigating.

A few days after that I noticed that the ebook in question was now marked DRM-free: hurrah! ... but when I bought it, and clicked on the "yes please download my DRM-free ebook" button, nothing happened.

I did not write back in because I have been. preoccupied.

But a few days after that I tried again and this time the download did work! So hurrah for bookshop.org needing me to do much less assertive escalation than I'd been expecting, and also for noticing that something was still broken and Fixing It without me needing to get around to e-mailing in about it.

... the quick part of this note was going to be: I know there were Questions on my first post about Hey They're Doing Ebooks Now, about how you actually filter for DRM-free. As far as I can tell this isn't actually possible from the ebooks landing page, which seems A Pity, BUT when you search for something (which can absolutely be as vague as "science fiction"), the FORMAT dropdown lets you filter for DRM-free ebooks only. Obviously this is Not Ideal, in that one might actually like to browse All DRM-Free Ebooks, but it does exist as an option, where as far as I can tell it doesn't, at all, on e.g. Kobo. Hopefully this knowledge is helpful! And certainly The Above Saga has caused me to think sufficiently positively of them that I'm likely to default to them for my ebooks in future.

Christmas music | Not-Christmas cake

Dec. 5th, 2025 01:25 pm
umadoshi: (Christmas - baking and warmth (skellorg))
[personal profile] umadoshi
An important task, given that I'm switching away from Spotify to Qobuz at this time of year: sifting through someone else's curated Trans-Siberian Orchestra playlist and pulling only about a third of the tracks from that to my own new holiday playlist. (There is a way to import Spotify playlists, but I haven't actually investigated it yet.)

My playlist is awfully random, really. I'm picky about Christmas music, but not in a way that follows much rhyme or reason. I like some boys' choir stuff. I mostly prefer older Christmas songs to more modern ones. But in practice, a lot of what I listen to is single-artist holiday albums, often by artists I don't really listen to otherwise. (The examples in my playlist so far are Annie Lennox and Sting and Idina Menzel, and maybe Mary Fahl counts, since I haven't heard any of her other solo work, just the old October Project albums where she was the lead vocalist.) If you have recs along those lines, feel free to throw them my way!

(Am I still entertained by the fact that Tori Amos put out a seasonal holiday album, uh...[*checks notes*] seventeen years ago? [WHY did I just date-check that?] Yep. Am I listening to it right now because it turned out that I enjoy most of it? Also yep. Still funny.)

(Would-be-funny-if-not-completely-horrifying: Every once in a while I remember Tom McRae saying that in the earliest days, his label thought his song "You Cut Her Hair" could be released as a Christmas track. "You Cut Her Hair" deals with the Holocaust. Very seasonal. Yes. o_o)

I guess it must've been back on the weekend that we made Smitten Kitchen's Mom’s Apple Cake, which was the first apple cake I was looking at a few weeks ago, but at the time we didn't have a tube pan on hand. (You can use a bundt, which we did have, but...I didn't opt for that.) It's very good. It's also LARGE. (Some went into the freezer.)

We cracked out the Burlap & Barrel Royal Cinnamon for it, and the cake is very cinnamony, but that presumably is at least equally due to the part where the cake calls for a tablespoon.
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

For lo these many years (i.e. basically since I got a smartphone) I've been using Swype as an onscreen keyboard. Some time ago it was announced that it had reached end-of-life-and-support, but it wasn't until I went looking earlier today that I realised that happened in 2018, that being when I posted asking for suggestions for replacements.

And then I didn't think about it again for, apparently, approximately eight years, through several new phones and quite a lot of new major versions of Android... and then a few-ish weeks ago Fairphone rolled out Android 15 to the Fairphone 4 and alas That Was The End Of That.

Recommendations back in 2018 were for Gboard and Swiftkey; a question posted to reddit in 2022 garnered similar responses.

Since the Abrupt Keyboard Failure I've swapped to Gboard more or less by default. I don't hate the bit where language switching is now automatic (for the purposes of language learning apps, at any rate), but good grief I am missing the ability to e.g. type < or | without needing to go like three clicks deep in menus. Yes, when I have "Touch and hold keys for symbols" enabled -- as far as I can tell that only gives me one symbol per key, not "now select from a variety of them" as with the much-lamented Swype. I'm also missing the gestures I know for "yes, that word, but change the capitalisation", and still grumpily adjusting to the shift key mode cycle being in a different order to what I'm used to.

I've experimented briefly with AnySoftKey but rapidly got annoyed by the total lack of any Irish language pack (and how difficult it is to navigate the app listings to establish this fact). I'm trying to persuade myself that it's worth giving SwiftKey a try even though it (1) is now Microsoft, (2) has gone all-in on Bundling With Copilot, and (3) apparently "contains ads".

Eheu, alas, etc; all is woe; ... unless anyone knows of any other Android keyboards that provide ready access to All the punctuation...?

twistedchick: watercolor painting of coffee cup on wood table (Default)
[personal profile] twistedchick
This is a prayer to Aphrodite.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for love and beauty.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for wine and roses.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for orgasm.  This is a prayer for Resistance.

Turning my eyes from ugly times, I cry to the Goddess of Beauty.  Beaten down again and again, I cry to She Who Enjoys.

“Aphrodite!” I cry.  “You wear sea foam, You stand on a shell, You are surrounded by cherubim.  Send, Great Goddess, Your cherubim to bring beauty back to the world.”

My Goddess lifts Her left foot, Her left foot covered in foam.  She shakes off the foam and begins to dance.

This is a prayer to Aphrodite.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for mirth and irreverance.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for perfume and starlight.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for artists and lovers.  This is a prayer for Resistance.

In a time of cruelty and hatred, I cry to the Goddess of Love.  Out of sorrow and deep depression, I cry to She Who Stirs Passion.

“Aphrodite!” I cry.  “You take many lovers, You admire Your own beauty, Your shining eyes light up the world.  Turn again, Great Goddess, Your eyes upon us that we may remember why we Resist.”

My Goddess looks at Herself in a mirror.  My Goddess takes joy in her own beauty.  Slowly, She holds the mirror up to us and invites us to see what we can create.

This is a prayer for foot rubs and sex toys.  This is prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for dancing and music.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for the reasons why.  This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer to Aphrodite.  This is a prayer for Resistance.

-- by Hecate Demeter
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
1. Dear Carolyn: My fiancé and I got engaged on Jan. 1, 2024 — so, almost two years ago — and then my sister and her fiancé got engaged this past summer. For a whole host of reasons, my fiancé and I have not gotten far at all in the wedding planning, but my sister and hers set a date and booked a venue pretty quickly — for the first weekend in July.

Recently, my fiancé sighted a local, family-owned venue and has started saying he wants to get married there in mid-June, around our anniversary and after school lets out because there are kids in our families we want to be there. If we did that, then it would be back-to-back weddings, which I — I cannot stress this enough — do NOT think is a great idea.
My sister and I have very overlapping guest lists, for one thing. Plus, I will be in her wedding (and hopefully she in mine), and I think we would each like to be able to focus on that without worrying about the details of another big event around the same time. Also, we are from a close family, and it just feels like squeezing too much juice out of one summer. Our mom is not super healthy, and I know she wants to be there for both of us.

I would strongly prefer to postpone our wedding until perhaps next spring, and honestly since we (especially my fiancé) have dragged our feet this much so far, there doesn’t feel like much of a hurry anymore. My fiancé is upset by this and says it feels like I’m letting my sister delay our marriage. Am I being obtuse by thinking we should get married a few months later than he wants to? We have been together for almost eight years, if it matters!
— Sister


Read more... )

********


2. Dear Carolyn: How do you navigate co-parenting a teen who is wicked smart but seemingly without motivation? My 17-year-old junior signed up for four AP classes this year, even after a good conversation about the amount of work they are and his not-great track record of turning in schoolwork. He thought he could handle it.

Here we are at the second quarter, and lo and behold, he’s struggling to keep up. I’m not in I-told-you-so mode, I promise! I am trying to be collaborative, asking how we can handle things here at my house to make it easier for him to focus (should probably mention ADHD). Those conversations always feel productive in terms of treating each other with respect, but … less effective at actually getting work done.

I am solidly of the opinion that, within reason, he should reap both the rewards AND the consequences of his decisions, and if an F is the consequence of not doing the work, well. His dad is much more aggressive at his house, and frequently my son comes back to me after a row with his dad over his lackluster performance.

Dad and I manage decently well at co-parenting except for this one area. I feel like Dad is worried more how all this reflects on HIM and not as interested in who his child really is. I can relate to my kid’s struggles, having had similar problems — and also possibly being neurodivergent, too — but Dad thinks if he just lectures enough, it will finally sink in.

My son can completely articulate what will happen if he fails a class and what will happen to his college and job prospects if his GPA tanks. What’s the point of repeating it ad nauseam? I am also trying to be a safe place, but his dad thinks I’m doing absolutely nothing. I’m fine telling Dad to stuff it about the “nothing” I’m doing, because I’ve been advocating hard for my kid since kindergarten — but any thoughts on navigating this? I use what few levers I have to encourage getting the work done, but he’s 17, and I can’t exactly tie him to a chair.
— Co-Parent of an Unmotivated Teen


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3. Dear Carolyn: I have always found the holidays to be a massive pain in the neck, and I have little interest in participating. This is not a new thing; I’m 30, and I’ve always felt that way. Like Scrooge, I’ve always been happy to let others keep Christmas in their way and for me to not keep it in mine.

Two years ago, I was married. Our engagement happened over a Christmas season, so my wife was well aware before she married me that I’m not the Christmas type.

Well, you guessed it, she is insistent that I help pick out and decorate a tree, put up Christmas decorations, attend holiday events, and buy a bunch of Christmas gifts. I’ve told her point-blank that I will not do it. I’ve told her SHE is welcome to buy and decorate as many trees as she wants, but I’m not helping with it. This has led to a couple of arguments, tears and claims that I’m selfish. She’s not speaking to me after I told her yesterday that I wasn’t planning to be home for the big party she’s planning to throw.

To me, Christmas is like religion: Practice it if you want, but don’t nag other people to practice it with you, and don’t try to change people who are (or were) happy with their lives as they are. So who’s right here?
— Scrooge


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4. Dear Carolyn: Two years ago, my in-laws asked me and my husband if we wanted them to help us buy a house. They had asked before and we said no, but at this point we were ready to start building community roots, so we said yes please. With their help, we bought a house we love(d), a cozy four-bedroom house in a progressive suburb.

On a visit a few months later, my mother-in-law tutted over the two bedrooms we turned into our offices, commenting that “it will be hard to repurpose these for babies when it’s time.” At no point have we ever indicated that we plan to have children, and in fact we do not plan to, which we had to tell her then.

Carolyn, she was so upset that it was shocking. Though my father-in-law helped defuse, she bawled violently at this news and informed us that she felt like she had bought us a house under false pretenses. She eventually collected herself but was subdued for the rest of the planned visit, another day and a half.

It has been about 18 months since then, and our relationship is now chilly. I feel uncomfortable inviting them to our home because now I feel like they think we don’t deserve it. I find it hurtful to know they wanted us to have a nice house not so that we could enjoy our own lives, but to enrich their grandchildren. And at some level, I feel like we stole from them, even though it’s ridiculous.

Every week, I tell my husband I think we should sell the house, give them some of the proceeds and go back to apartment living. He says I’m nuts and to ignore his mom’s dramatics. But did we do something wrong here?
— Hurt


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umadoshi: (chocolate 01 (oraclegreen))
[personal profile] umadoshi
The season's first storm is heading our way, although our bit of the province is expecting way more rain than snow. (Now it rains. But I think it mostly hasn't been too cold yet, so hopefully the rain will help the water table etc. recover some more after the summer/fall drought.) Maybe [personal profile] scruloose can get the hoses indoors (or drained, if that's the plan) when they get home from work, before the weather arrives.

I've finally gotten weary enough of my natural hair color to buy permanent OTC dye, as opposed to the semi-permanent attempts I've made since it became obvious that covid has settled in for the long haul. TL;DR: purple permanent dye has been purchased but not yet applied )

C&Ping and expanding on a bit from Bluesky last night: an Advent calendar + supplementary chocolate )
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Our 6-year-old is about to lose her first baby tooth, and my wife wants her to put it under her pillow and do the whole Tooth Fairy routine. I think this is idiotic. When I said so, my wife called me a killjoy and accused me of ruining a “sacred rite of childhood.” It’s 2025, and I’m pretty sure even little kids don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy anymore. Do I really have to play along with this?

—Dad Living In Reality


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umadoshi: (Christmas - boughs (carolstime))
[personal profile] umadoshi
I wonder how much of an entry I can write on my phone before it gets too annoying. Still a bit amazed that the best-for-me swipe keyboard I've found is literally still in alpha. (I almost always strongly prefer to use tech/programs that are solidly out of beta, and yet.)

Bucky the Christmas tree has been revived from cold storage! I do still miss some elements of having a real tree, between the traditions and the evergreen scent, but it sure is nice not to have the time constraints of "how long will it look alive?" when deciding to put it up/take it down. And I'm also finding that I like the feeling of This Is Our Tree. Hello, Bucky, old chum. Good to see you again. You look well!

Anyhow, as of yesterday* he's in his place, built-in lights all aglow. No ornaments yet. Plenty of time for that.

*Ginny is not what you'd call a Christmas fan, so I told myself firmly that there was no call to put Bucky up on Saturday right before she and Kas would be coming over.

Today's main excitement was a dental appointment. Everything looks good, apparently. Now to hope once again that this won't be the time I get covid out of it despite the precautions we manage to take.

Admin Post: Challenges in December

Dec. 2nd, 2025 02:32 am
mific: (Art brushes pencils)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] drawesome
It's a busy month with seasonal projects and challenges. The seasonal card exchange is underway, and we're extending the fanartist rec challenge across this month as well.

text


Art Rec Challenge: Rec a Fanartist

Pick a fanartist you like and tell us why you enjoy their works - and link us to a few examples, and to their main site or sites.

Any fandom, but only fanartists please, not professional artists (it's okay if they're fanartists who do commissions or have a buy-me-a-coffee, though, as that's fairly common these days.) They can be from any era - from early Star Trek vintage to artists posting currently.

Tell us about just one artist per post, please - you can make more than one post if you want to rec two or three artists!

A round-up post for this recs challenge will be done at the end of December. Happy reccing!
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1888828.html




Hey, Americans and people living in the US going through open enrollment on the state ACA marketplaces who haven't yet enrolled in a plan for 2026!

Just about every state in the union and DC (but not Idaho) proudly touts an end date to open enrollment sometime in January. This year for most states it ends January 15th, but in CA, NJ, NY, RI, and DC, it's January 31st, and here in Massachusetts, it's January 23rd. (Idaho's is December 15th.) [Source]

That sure sounds like the deadline is sometime in January.

No, it kinda isn't.

tl;dr: Just assume if you want insurance to start Jan 1, the deadlines are to enroll by Dec 8 and to pay for the first month by Dec 15. Important deets within. [950 words] )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

... to be expanded on tomorrow. <3 ("Tomorrow" was a lie; travel apparently took it out of me more than somewhat! So here I am instead on Sunday the 7th of December...)

Reading. Treatise on Man, Descartes trans. Stephen Gaukroger. Very helpful, in that I now have a lot of opinions about what Descartes said that seem to be... decidedly in conflict with Received Wisdom about What Descartes Said. But, like, in such a way that I can see how they got there (by focussing on one paragraph in isolation) and can meaningfully argue that they're all wrong (based on the rest of the text). (Frustratingly many of the key passages supporting my interpretation are omitted from the other translation I have ready access to -- Cottingham -- and while my academic French is up to 1860s chemistry, I am not going to try reading the original text. In either language.)

Pain, Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen. See next week for details.

Watching. We were visiting some of A's folk and their habit involves much more film watching than we normally get around to! Consequently I have rewatched Knives Out and The Glass Onion (which latter I think I actually liked more on rewatch than on my first go through, even if I do have ongoing quibbles with fiction that doesn't give you enough information that you can reasonably put clues together yourself before The Reveal Sequence), Kinky Boots (never seen it before and LOVED IT), and The Intouchables (also never seen it before, mildly impressed at what a solid go it made at being ~heartwarming~ despite all the workplace sexual harassment and, of course, the fundamental "millionaire pays immigrant to perform personal care work" of it all).

Playing. Inkulinati! Lots more thereof.

Also new-to-me games Rummikub (note "In Turkey, the game is known as [Okey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okey[citation needed]") and Five Crowns. Extremely impressed with myself for picking both of these up via verbal instructions only without any panic attacks.

Eating. POMEGRANATES and ORANGES from the GARDEN.

Read more... )

Exploring. Şehit Fehti Bey Parkı (SNAIL SCULPTURES (); local-to-that Tuesday Market feat. PERSIMMONS and ROSE BUDS FOR TEA and YOGHURT SERVED BY THE HALF KILO, and also many good ducks, and also so many quince and tiny medlar and many many other things; Babadağ Teleferik up to the 1200m station, where there was an utter lack of the kind of Walks For Tourists that I expected BUT we nonetheless met Some Very Good Dogs and also so many Quercus ilex; and the ancient city of Tlos, which I would very much like to visit again in future with a slightly more cooperative body. And of course the agricultural museum at Yalçin!

Observing. WE FOUND A BAT on an evening Stupid Little Walk to Get My Stupid Steps. Also GOATS and SQUASH and infinite cats and so on and so forth, but we were definitely most excited about the BAT.

[admin post] Admin Post: Community Check-In for November 2025

Nov. 30th, 2025 01:44 pm
goss: Rainbow - Pencils (Rainbow - Pencils)
[personal profile] goss posting in [community profile] drawesome

Drawesome Monthly Check-In Post

It's the last day of November, and we'd love to have you check in and chat with us. How have things been with you this past month?

Did you sign up for or take part in any fandom activities in November, or have you been working on any personal art projects? Are you currently trying to meet a deadline? Feel free to share upcoming art challenges that have got you excited, any frustrations you've been experiencing, possible goals for the next month, and so on.

[pain] oh this book is bad

Nov. 29th, 2025 08:59 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

The terrible hyphenation one can reasonably attribute to a failure to invest in subject specialist proof readers (or possibly any proof readers at all, good grief).

The wildly ahistorical nonsense about the history of medicine? Less so. I begin to understand why there isn't a references section, and I've only made it as far as page 7 before needing to stop and shriek about it and also stare at a wall for a bit...

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