![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
You flipped the script and you shot the plot
Feb. 15th, 2026 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sovayI have not slept in two nights as opposed to brief random hours elsewhere on the clock, but the sunlight this afternoon was gorgeous.
( I'm a little hungover and I may have to steal your soul. )
Like just about the rest of this weekend, any plans I had to attend even part of this year's sci-fi marathon at the Somerville did not survive contact with my stamina. Hestia has now broken four slats out of my blinds for a better view on Bird Theater and having tired herself out chattering at their delicious players sleeps innocently against my mermaid lamp, softly and a little snufflily breathing out a purr.
( I'm a little hungover and I may have to steal your soul. )
Like just about the rest of this weekend, any plans I had to attend even part of this year's sci-fi marathon at the Somerville did not survive contact with my stamina. Hestia has now broken four slats out of my blinds for a better view on Bird Theater and having tired herself out chattering at their delicious players sleeps innocently against my mermaid lamp, softly and a little snufflily breathing out a purr.
Idiopathic Intussusception
Feb. 15th, 2026 07:47 ampklemicaIt's been a rough couple weeks. Maybe 10 mins after breakfast one morning, Dust came downstairs again making this low, loud moan, then it got kind of yodel-y and we were especially like ?! what is going on, buddy? and then he puked. Then another round 5-10 mins after that. We felt bad for him, poor kitty lost his breakfast, it happens sometimes - clean it up, give him an hour or two for his tummy to settle, offer kibble again... except he wouldn't eat any of that kibble. Nor of the wet food offered at lunch. By the time he refused his dinner I was Freaking Out & ready to take him to the vet right them; Stephen suggested texting their sister Sarah (who is a vet) who guided them through an initial physical exam and said it can wait 'til morning, but when morning came and he still wasn't eating we were first people at the vet.
Nothing was obviously wrong; temp ok, blood levels fine, breath sounds good... a little bit of irritation/inflammation visible on the xray around the stomach & upper small intestine, both that vet and Sarah thought this was very encouraging, just a little gastritis, once it settles down he'll happily be eating again. The vet even said I could go on the ski weekend we'd had planned (I wasn't gonna ski but I was gonna eat my weight in fondue) and leave him mostly unsupervised with the occasional catsitter visit, but I absolutely wasn't gonna be able to relax and enjoy myself like that - stayed home and failed to get this little boy to eat the entire weekend even with the anti-nausea and appetite stimulant meds they'd sent home with us. By Monday I was a wreck, and this time the vet was saying best case feeding tube, worst case exploratory abdominal surgery with no guarantee they'd even find anything. This time he did have a bit of a fever, and xrays showed worse inflammation in that same area; his underlying health was getting him through something rough (even just 1 whole day without food can cause hepatic lipidosis in cats, and it had been 4 at this point for him but they said no signs of that yet). I cried in the exam room while they were getting the paperwork ready, I was so scared my cat was dying.
It took hours longer than expected for anyone to update me; apparently they were short-staffed on assistance for the day, qualified people to save my kitty in abundance but no one to then ring and say hey he just made it out and is doing ok - they had to go save the next one - so I waited way too long and increasingly certain something very terrible had happened... especially the last 40 mins, when I'd called the vet and the receptionist said his surgeon would be able to call me back in 10-20 mins and offered no further information about my cat's condition. My sister's on maternity leave right now, she was great: saw the text with that info and immediately called me, asked if I wanted her to stay on the phone with me 'til they called back, and eventually volunteered that it had been a LONG fuckin 10-20 mins and helped me brainstorm a callback that wasn't "look can you please just tell me if my cat is dead".
So apparently part of his intestine got folded into itself, and once it's there the rest of the intestine just starts doing its normal intestiney thing and starts pulling it along... this is a super rare thing in cats and humans, generally only seen in the very young (and at least with cats, Sarah volunteered, also generally riddled with parasites on top of that). He lost 3-4" of gut and was, in what probably could have been phrased more delicately to me by the surgeon, "laid open like a fish," but he was ok! We could come visit him now, but they'd need to hold him 'til they saw him eat, keep it down, and get it successfully out the other end. He was terrified and more than a little furious in the backroom cages there, but oh my word he already looked so much better than he had, and his fever had broken.
The vet warned us that he wasn't completely out of the woods yet - the first 5 days after this sort of surgery, they're at the greatest risk of dehiscence, the gut tearing itself apart at that suture site instead of sealing back together. So I have to admit I was torn the next couple days, obviously wanting him to please finally eat something but also kind of relieved he had full-time professional attention for some of that window. But when by Wednesday he still hadn't eaten anything, we all agreed look this cat spent the first 6-9 months of his life in a feral colony with zero human socialization, he's made good progress with us in the following 5 years but he's just too scared to eat in this entirely novel setting now... with equal parts relief and terror, we took him home. Set up the guest room to have as many cozy spots and as few things that could be climbed on as possible, got a special kind of litter that wouldn't stick to his belly wound if(/when) he laid in it, got a medicine schedule with antibiotics and opioids along with the stuff he'd already been on. HE ATE IMMEDIATELY! It had been six and a half days; I texted everyone in celebration.
It took another two and a half days for him to poop and by that point it was becoming increasingly clear just how much he was struggling to adapt to the cone of shame. Every single time he'd try to go somewhere, he'd bonk it on the walls and corners of things, get stuck and just kind of pause & push without understanding why "go" wasn't working, catch the bottom of it on whatever cushion or rug he was headed toward and just faceplant... and if you'd come try to help him, lift the cone up, he'd motor forward and immediately be full head-down & stuck again. He was eating some, but not nearly enough and maybe it was because he couldn't figure out how to get to the food, so I started hand-feeding him. This took about 45 mins a go, and to get anywhere close to enough food in him I was doing it 4-5 times a day. It was excellent bonding time for us! I was so scared about whether he was gonna make it, I slept in there with him most nights too, and one time he crept up on the bed with me and then closer and closer and closer, until finally I scooped him up next to my chest so I could just keep gently petting him, and he leaned against me and purrrrrrred and we fell asleep with him against me and my hand against him and I never thought I'd get to cuddle this scaredy boy like that but he stayed there the whole rest of the night.
At his post-op follow-up this Friday he was cleared for all normal activity as long as he doesn't start obsessively licking at his belly. He can eat on his own and is able to finally get in enough calories now! We still kept him in the guest room for the overnight that first night, Fnord's super freaked out by this interloper who is shaped like Brother but obviously is not Brother because he smells wrong, and we wanted a little more time for Dust to get a chance to groom some of the worst of the vet's office off of him before letting them that long together unsupervised. Fnord's still hissing every time he gets too close to Dust, but no action beyond that, and Dust remains ever hopeful that after 2 weeks of ordeal he will finally get some comfort from his favorite person just as soon as that person stops swearing at him so look it's been 10 minutes surely it's time to say hi again. They were technically free to roam last night but Fnord spent the whole night firmly installed behind my knees, so I did get to supervise the 3-4 interactions they had overnight. I can still smell the medicine-y scent on Dust, so I think it might be a bit yet for Fnord to accept him back. We'll be here to give him whatever scritches, pats, and cuddles he's willing to accept from *gasp* humans, in the meantime.
He's gonna be ok!
Nothing was obviously wrong; temp ok, blood levels fine, breath sounds good... a little bit of irritation/inflammation visible on the xray around the stomach & upper small intestine, both that vet and Sarah thought this was very encouraging, just a little gastritis, once it settles down he'll happily be eating again. The vet even said I could go on the ski weekend we'd had planned (I wasn't gonna ski but I was gonna eat my weight in fondue) and leave him mostly unsupervised with the occasional catsitter visit, but I absolutely wasn't gonna be able to relax and enjoy myself like that - stayed home and failed to get this little boy to eat the entire weekend even with the anti-nausea and appetite stimulant meds they'd sent home with us. By Monday I was a wreck, and this time the vet was saying best case feeding tube, worst case exploratory abdominal surgery with no guarantee they'd even find anything. This time he did have a bit of a fever, and xrays showed worse inflammation in that same area; his underlying health was getting him through something rough (even just 1 whole day without food can cause hepatic lipidosis in cats, and it had been 4 at this point for him but they said no signs of that yet). I cried in the exam room while they were getting the paperwork ready, I was so scared my cat was dying.
It took hours longer than expected for anyone to update me; apparently they were short-staffed on assistance for the day, qualified people to save my kitty in abundance but no one to then ring and say hey he just made it out and is doing ok - they had to go save the next one - so I waited way too long and increasingly certain something very terrible had happened... especially the last 40 mins, when I'd called the vet and the receptionist said his surgeon would be able to call me back in 10-20 mins and offered no further information about my cat's condition. My sister's on maternity leave right now, she was great: saw the text with that info and immediately called me, asked if I wanted her to stay on the phone with me 'til they called back, and eventually volunteered that it had been a LONG fuckin 10-20 mins and helped me brainstorm a callback that wasn't "look can you please just tell me if my cat is dead".
So apparently part of his intestine got folded into itself, and once it's there the rest of the intestine just starts doing its normal intestiney thing and starts pulling it along... this is a super rare thing in cats and humans, generally only seen in the very young (and at least with cats, Sarah volunteered, also generally riddled with parasites on top of that). He lost 3-4" of gut and was, in what probably could have been phrased more delicately to me by the surgeon, "laid open like a fish," but he was ok! We could come visit him now, but they'd need to hold him 'til they saw him eat, keep it down, and get it successfully out the other end. He was terrified and more than a little furious in the backroom cages there, but oh my word he already looked so much better than he had, and his fever had broken.
The vet warned us that he wasn't completely out of the woods yet - the first 5 days after this sort of surgery, they're at the greatest risk of dehiscence, the gut tearing itself apart at that suture site instead of sealing back together. So I have to admit I was torn the next couple days, obviously wanting him to please finally eat something but also kind of relieved he had full-time professional attention for some of that window. But when by Wednesday he still hadn't eaten anything, we all agreed look this cat spent the first 6-9 months of his life in a feral colony with zero human socialization, he's made good progress with us in the following 5 years but he's just too scared to eat in this entirely novel setting now... with equal parts relief and terror, we took him home. Set up the guest room to have as many cozy spots and as few things that could be climbed on as possible, got a special kind of litter that wouldn't stick to his belly wound if(/when) he laid in it, got a medicine schedule with antibiotics and opioids along with the stuff he'd already been on. HE ATE IMMEDIATELY! It had been six and a half days; I texted everyone in celebration.
It took another two and a half days for him to poop and by that point it was becoming increasingly clear just how much he was struggling to adapt to the cone of shame. Every single time he'd try to go somewhere, he'd bonk it on the walls and corners of things, get stuck and just kind of pause & push without understanding why "go" wasn't working, catch the bottom of it on whatever cushion or rug he was headed toward and just faceplant... and if you'd come try to help him, lift the cone up, he'd motor forward and immediately be full head-down & stuck again. He was eating some, but not nearly enough and maybe it was because he couldn't figure out how to get to the food, so I started hand-feeding him. This took about 45 mins a go, and to get anywhere close to enough food in him I was doing it 4-5 times a day. It was excellent bonding time for us! I was so scared about whether he was gonna make it, I slept in there with him most nights too, and one time he crept up on the bed with me and then closer and closer and closer, until finally I scooped him up next to my chest so I could just keep gently petting him, and he leaned against me and purrrrrrred and we fell asleep with him against me and my hand against him and I never thought I'd get to cuddle this scaredy boy like that but he stayed there the whole rest of the night.
At his post-op follow-up this Friday he was cleared for all normal activity as long as he doesn't start obsessively licking at his belly. He can eat on his own and is able to finally get in enough calories now! We still kept him in the guest room for the overnight that first night, Fnord's super freaked out by this interloper who is shaped like Brother but obviously is not Brother because he smells wrong, and we wanted a little more time for Dust to get a chance to groom some of the worst of the vet's office off of him before letting them that long together unsupervised. Fnord's still hissing every time he gets too close to Dust, but no action beyond that, and Dust remains ever hopeful that after 2 weeks of ordeal he will finally get some comfort from his favorite person just as soon as that person stops swearing at him so look it's been 10 minutes surely it's time to say hi again. They were technically free to roam last night but Fnord spent the whole night firmly installed behind my knees, so I did get to supervise the 3-4 interactions they had overnight. I can still smell the medicine-y scent on Dust, so I think it might be a bit yet for Fnord to accept him back. We'll be here to give him whatever scritches, pats, and cuddles he's willing to accept from *gasp* humans, in the meantime.
He's gonna be ok!
And the birds flew right by and the earth made them sing
Feb. 14th, 2026 11:53 pmsovayI spent the first half of Valentine's Day unromantically fulfilling some medical errands and then trying to sleep off a migraine, but in the evening I made keyn-ahora plans with rushthatspeaks and spatch and I ordered an accidentally four-person quantity of dinner from Chivo and watched Tales of the Tinkerdee (1962), an early fractured fairy tale of a Muppet curio whose relentlessly older-than-vaudeville gags we frequently missed from still laughing at a line about three jokes earlier. "A solid ruby gold-panning inlaid electric-fried antique!" After that I fell asleep on the couch.
rushthatspeaks and spatch and I ordered an accidentally four-person quantity of dinner from Chivo and watched Tales of the Tinkerdee (1962), an early fractured fairy tale of a Muppet curio whose relentlessly older-than-vaudeville gags we frequently missed from still laughing at a line about three jokes earlier. "A solid ruby gold-panning inlaid electric-fried antique!" After that I fell asleep on the couch.i know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls that brought me here
Feb. 14th, 2026 10:07 pmursamajorTwenty-plus years of loving each other, cooking together, and building upon our mutual disdain of dealing with crowds and reservations for Valentine's Day means hyounpark and I made a dinner worth remembering tonight.
By default, when we have pork belly around in the winter, we usually braise it in apple cider, along with a chopped onion, garlic, a little soy sauce, fish sauce, and fivespice. But we didn't have apple cider in the fridge, so I thought about what else we could use for a braising liquid, and while pondering, found a recipe on the McCormick website for a Thai Tea-Spiced Pork Belly with Condensed Milk Sauce, and my eyes lit up, because I knew we had Thai tea packets on hand.
We riffed heavily off that recipe, mostly treating it as taste profile suggestions. I started steeping a liter of Thai tea while H chopped an onion, then I sauteed the onions with garlic and ginger paste (an incredible convenience courtesy the Indian grocery store in our neighborhood), and then added some fivespice powder. H crosshatched the pork belly skin, then cut it into small enough slabs to fit in our Instant Pot. I added a few tablespoons of soy sauce and fish sauce to the stuff in the skillet, then dumped that in the bottom of the Instant Pot; laid the pork belly slabs on top of the rack in the IP, and poured the tea over everything, and then closed it up and let it go on high for 20 minutes.
While that went, H tried to turn our rice into the suggested rice cakes, but we should've used sushi rice instead of brown rice which was what we had ready. Even using the musubi mold didn't get it to stick together enough, alas. Everything still tasted delicious in the end, though, so no fuss.
Meanwhile, I made the condensed milk sauce in the recipe - we had condensed coconut milk on hand, I subbed in peanut butter for the tahini and chile crisp for the sambal - and then turned my attention to the salad. What did we have in the fridge? Half a head of butter lettuce, some shiso leaves, scallions; enough for at least a little greenery on the plate. Chopped the leafy greens and scallion up, and then, inspired, ran an apple through the mandolin. Whisked together a dressing of peanut oil, lime juice, fish sauce, a little galangal and garlic. Topped it off with peanuts.
The IP finished releasing pressure just as we finished the rest of the plating; we each pulled out a small slab of pork belly, drizzled the condensed milk sauce over it, and utterly freaking devoured our dinner. Everything just came together, building on decades of experience and familiarity with each others' taste, and we will absolutely do this again.
And it's not Valentine's for us without chocolate, so I pulled a log of our favorite chocolate toffee cookies out of the freezer, sliced and baked and ate. (Along with the last crumbs of the gargantuan king cake sliceladyjax bestowed upon me yesterday! Many thanks to her A for the baking thereof :) )
Somehow we will both get up in the morning and go for a digestive run and continue appreciating how we grow together, even as things around us are so very different from how we imagined when we began.
hyounpark and I made a dinner worth remembering tonight. By default, when we have pork belly around in the winter, we usually braise it in apple cider, along with a chopped onion, garlic, a little soy sauce, fish sauce, and fivespice. But we didn't have apple cider in the fridge, so I thought about what else we could use for a braising liquid, and while pondering, found a recipe on the McCormick website for a Thai Tea-Spiced Pork Belly with Condensed Milk Sauce, and my eyes lit up, because I knew we had Thai tea packets on hand.
We riffed heavily off that recipe, mostly treating it as taste profile suggestions. I started steeping a liter of Thai tea while H chopped an onion, then I sauteed the onions with garlic and ginger paste (an incredible convenience courtesy the Indian grocery store in our neighborhood), and then added some fivespice powder. H crosshatched the pork belly skin, then cut it into small enough slabs to fit in our Instant Pot. I added a few tablespoons of soy sauce and fish sauce to the stuff in the skillet, then dumped that in the bottom of the Instant Pot; laid the pork belly slabs on top of the rack in the IP, and poured the tea over everything, and then closed it up and let it go on high for 20 minutes.
While that went, H tried to turn our rice into the suggested rice cakes, but we should've used sushi rice instead of brown rice which was what we had ready. Even using the musubi mold didn't get it to stick together enough, alas. Everything still tasted delicious in the end, though, so no fuss.
Meanwhile, I made the condensed milk sauce in the recipe - we had condensed coconut milk on hand, I subbed in peanut butter for the tahini and chile crisp for the sambal - and then turned my attention to the salad. What did we have in the fridge? Half a head of butter lettuce, some shiso leaves, scallions; enough for at least a little greenery on the plate. Chopped the leafy greens and scallion up, and then, inspired, ran an apple through the mandolin. Whisked together a dressing of peanut oil, lime juice, fish sauce, a little galangal and garlic. Topped it off with peanuts.
The IP finished releasing pressure just as we finished the rest of the plating; we each pulled out a small slab of pork belly, drizzled the condensed milk sauce over it, and utterly freaking devoured our dinner. Everything just came together, building on decades of experience and familiarity with each others' taste, and we will absolutely do this again.
And it's not Valentine's for us without chocolate, so I pulled a log of our favorite chocolate toffee cookies out of the freezer, sliced and baked and ate. (Along with the last crumbs of the gargantuan king cake slice
ladyjax bestowed upon me yesterday! Many thanks to her A for the baking thereof :) )Somehow we will both get up in the morning and go for a digestive run and continue appreciating how we grow together, even as things around us are so very different from how we imagined when we began.
The big lie of rotisserie chicken
Feb. 15th, 2026 02:23 pmmindstalk(Disclaimer: title is an exaggeration)
It's commonly said, particularly on Bluesky right now, that US supermarket rotisserie whole chicken is as cheap or cheaper than buying a whole raw chicken, with many people wondering how that's possible. A common reason suggested is "loss leader". More cynically, one might suspect of chickens about to expire, thus providing basically free input. (There's an independent grocer-deli in Montreal that I suspect did exactly this: their cooked drumsticks that I bought had a suspicious whiff to them.)
But why do people believe cooked chicken is cheaper than raw? Apparently because they compare the cost of cooked and raw chickens... as if all chickens were the same size. Or as if stores drew randomly from the chicken supply to cook. But really, given that raw chicken is sold by weight, and cooked chickens are sold by chicken, why wouldn't a store pull the smallest chickens to cook and sell at a markup?
( Read more... )
As for the "Big Lie" in the title, that's not the stores lying, per se. They offer you a chicken, and they sell you a chicken. But the belief circulating that it's comparable to a chicken you'd buy to cook on your own? That's generally a falsehood, if not a lie.
Parshat Mishpatim
Feb. 14th, 2026 09:21 pmmagidI tried an experiment, changing when my bedroom light turned off to before 10p, and it worked: I woke up around 6a, had time to laze in bed, and still be a bit early to 7a davening (no, autocorrect, I do not mean “deveining”….), making it to Shabbat davening in shul for the first time in too long. I was the second person there, and ended setting up the mechitzah. People arrived steadily enough that there wasn’t a wait at shacharit, which was great, especially since some regulars weren’t available (it’s not a large minyan).
We read parshat Mishpatim today, and two pesukim stood out from the rest of the laws being discussed, ones that perhaps the people who still support some of the actions of the current regime yet claim to revere their holy texts should remember.
Shmot/Exodus 22:21
וְגֵ֥ר לֹא־תוֹנֶ֖ה וְלֹ֣א תִלְחָצֶ֑נּוּ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Shmot/Exodus 23:2
לֹֽא־תִהְיֶ֥ה אַחֲרֵֽי־רַבִּ֖ים לְרָעֹ֑ת וְלֹא־תַעֲנֶ֣ה עַל־רִ֗ב לִנְטֹ֛ת אַחֲרֵ֥י רַבִּ֖ים לְהַטֹּֽת׃
You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty—
(and the next pasuk is about not favoring the poor either; I think that is currently not our issue)
( Read more... )
We read parshat Mishpatim today, and two pesukim stood out from the rest of the laws being discussed, ones that perhaps the people who still support some of the actions of the current regime yet claim to revere their holy texts should remember.
Shmot/Exodus 22:21
וְגֵ֥ר לֹא־תוֹנֶ֖ה וְלֹ֣א תִלְחָצֶ֑נּוּ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Shmot/Exodus 23:2
לֹֽא־תִהְיֶ֥ה אַחֲרֵֽי־רַבִּ֖ים לְרָעֹ֑ת וְלֹא־תַעֲנֶ֣ה עַל־רִ֗ב לִנְטֹ֛ת אַחֲרֵ֥י רַבִּ֖ים לְהַטֹּֽת׃
You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty—
(and the next pasuk is about not favoring the poor either; I think that is currently not our issue)
( Read more... )
Feb 6: new Fujisawa home / Feb 10: ebike / Feb 12: Sushiro
Feb. 14th, 2026 10:12 pmmindstalkIn my current procrastination regarding actually leaving Japan, I found an attractive place nearby: the upper level of a house, 100 square meters! Japanese and Western style rooms, choices of futon and beds! Figured I had to try it. Was only available for a week. A bit pricey, but pretty cheap for the space -- not that I need all that space, but after an accumulated month in a 20 m2 place, I looked forward to stretching out.
You pay in another way, though: where my first places had been a 15 minute walk from the main station, then a 5-8 minute walk, this was a 7 minute walk to a minor station, two stops away from Fujisawa, on a line with 14 minute headways. (The Enoden line is mostly single tracked, so probably not much choice there.)
( Read more... )
Feb 4, Fuji and Enoshima
Feb. 14th, 2026 09:46 pmmindstalkGuess I'm doing these out of order... Album
Took the train to Katase-Enoshima, to test my post-Odawara hypothesis of "see snow on Fuji if you get out early enough." Success!
(Yeah, so this happened before my Fuji-Ofuna entry, oops.)
After that I decided to walk to Enoshima island for the second time and see if I'd missed stuff. (Yes.) ( Read more... )
Feb 9, good Fuji photos and Ofuna
Feb. 14th, 2026 09:28 pmmindstalkAt last, a really good view of Mount Fuji:
It really does help to get up earlier in the day. View taken from the rooftop terrace of Shounan-Enoshima Monorail station.
Later photo, taken from the monorail station, which I like for the mountain-over-plain feeling:
( Read more... )
almost all olympics, all the time
Feb. 13th, 2026 10:22 pmtsuki_no_barafirst important thing: the us mixed doubles won silver against sweden, which isn't as good as a gold but is the first us medal in that branch of curling so i'm not complaining too much. it was a good game too, very tense. (i may or may not have missed an admim meeting because i was watching it online at work. ahem.) and my curling club got a shoutout. :D
2 fast 2 curlious. hee.
(last night i watched some of the women us vs sweden and cory thiesse who was on the mixed doubles team is on the women's team and she must be so tired.)
second important thing: i got snowed on tuesday on the way home. :DDD it was very exciting.
other sports i've seen include some ski jump (looks both fun and absolutely terrifying), some speed skating (holy shit thighs), and some ice dancing (my favorite was the spanish couple who skated to the music from dune). i was briefly distracted by more norwegian drama, namely the biathlete who used his bronze-medal interview to admit he cheated on his girlfriend (she broke up with him) and then also admitted he hoped his public declaration of love would win her back. it did not. there's also drama in the figure skating but it sounds less like "guy did a stupid thing" drama and more like "everyone's covering for the rapist" drama and that is just way more serious.
i also randomly caught the gold medal run for women's snowboard cross which was won by an australian with a huge cheering section all wearing pink hats. so cute. the snowboarders all hugged each other after the run and that was also extremely adorable. now i'm watching the men's halfpipe and one of the japanese snowboarders is wearing pearly nail polish and how can you not love that? shaun white is there and his reactions to the tricks and the falls are fantastic.
now you're gonna get curling links because it's me and i only get to do this once every four years.
snoop dogg hangs with the curlers. korey dropkin's mom taught him about curling. (mom's name is shelly and while i don't know her i think she was president of the club at one point and was basically kind of a big deal. everything i've ever heard about her is positive.)
the oldest athlete at the games is a fifty-four-year-old lawyer on the us men's curling team. :D one of the other guys on the team, this lawyer curled with his dad. it's gotta be weird to be old enough to have fathered the other folks on your team but it sounds like they're all very cool about it.
i don't know what to call this. there are wrestlers. it's weird. also cute.
how about a curling stone cake?
and finally an article about my club, because god knows i've mentioned it enough. (that should be a non-paywalled link.)
couple more general olympics links:
meet one of only two greenlanders at the olympics. she's a biathlete there with her brother (also a biathlete) and if you saw people waving the greenlandic flag along the course? danish fans showing their support.
the olympic village ran out of condoms in THREE DAYS. someone seriously underestimated the amount of sex these attractive, athletic folks were going to be having.
speaking of curling i was way off my game on sunday altho the ice was quite weird but we had to call the game when someone on the other team slipped, fell, landed on her wrist, and had to get off the ice. her hubs took her to the er. they were ahead so we just gave them the win and ended it. i'm sure she's out for the rest of the season but i hope she's ok. i consequently did not see any of the super bowl or the halftime show which was kind of a bummer because i wanted to watch that.
and saturday for dinner i was really feeling it for hawaiian food and fortunately! there's a place not super far from me that can provide. i get there and the guy behind the counter asked me "you want some free food?" and i went "uh..." because on the one hand yes, who's going to turn down free dinner? but on the other, why were they giving it away?? because they were about to close. so i went home with my spam musubi and my mix plate and a random container of poke (yum), a random container of mac salad (yum), and a random container of pickled cucumbers (yum). a++, will order late from them again.
wednesday was the anniversary of the day the good voters of nevada passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting people who'd participated in a duel from voting or holding office. they voted on this in 1889. it may or may not still be on the books.
in honor of tomorrow beingcheap chocolate eve valentine's day i need to share that angry orchard hard cider will take your ex's stuff and exchange it for cash. and then you exchange the cash for cider. everyone wins. :D
you can preorder squishable toilet paper. you know, if your life needs a toilet roll plushie in it.
2 fast 2 curlious. hee.
(last night i watched some of the women us vs sweden and cory thiesse who was on the mixed doubles team is on the women's team and she must be so tired.)
second important thing: i got snowed on tuesday on the way home. :DDD it was very exciting.
other sports i've seen include some ski jump (looks both fun and absolutely terrifying), some speed skating (holy shit thighs), and some ice dancing (my favorite was the spanish couple who skated to the music from dune). i was briefly distracted by more norwegian drama, namely the biathlete who used his bronze-medal interview to admit he cheated on his girlfriend (she broke up with him) and then also admitted he hoped his public declaration of love would win her back. it did not. there's also drama in the figure skating but it sounds less like "guy did a stupid thing" drama and more like "everyone's covering for the rapist" drama and that is just way more serious.
i also randomly caught the gold medal run for women's snowboard cross which was won by an australian with a huge cheering section all wearing pink hats. so cute. the snowboarders all hugged each other after the run and that was also extremely adorable. now i'm watching the men's halfpipe and one of the japanese snowboarders is wearing pearly nail polish and how can you not love that? shaun white is there and his reactions to the tricks and the falls are fantastic.
now you're gonna get curling links because it's me and i only get to do this once every four years.
snoop dogg hangs with the curlers. korey dropkin's mom taught him about curling. (mom's name is shelly and while i don't know her i think she was president of the club at one point and was basically kind of a big deal. everything i've ever heard about her is positive.)
the oldest athlete at the games is a fifty-four-year-old lawyer on the us men's curling team. :D one of the other guys on the team, this lawyer curled with his dad. it's gotta be weird to be old enough to have fathered the other folks on your team but it sounds like they're all very cool about it.
i don't know what to call this. there are wrestlers. it's weird. also cute.
how about a curling stone cake?
and finally an article about my club, because god knows i've mentioned it enough. (that should be a non-paywalled link.)
couple more general olympics links:
meet one of only two greenlanders at the olympics. she's a biathlete there with her brother (also a biathlete) and if you saw people waving the greenlandic flag along the course? danish fans showing their support.
the olympic village ran out of condoms in THREE DAYS. someone seriously underestimated the amount of sex these attractive, athletic folks were going to be having.
speaking of curling i was way off my game on sunday altho the ice was quite weird but we had to call the game when someone on the other team slipped, fell, landed on her wrist, and had to get off the ice. her hubs took her to the er. they were ahead so we just gave them the win and ended it. i'm sure she's out for the rest of the season but i hope she's ok. i consequently did not see any of the super bowl or the halftime show which was kind of a bummer because i wanted to watch that.
and saturday for dinner i was really feeling it for hawaiian food and fortunately! there's a place not super far from me that can provide. i get there and the guy behind the counter asked me "you want some free food?" and i went "uh..." because on the one hand yes, who's going to turn down free dinner? but on the other, why were they giving it away?? because they were about to close. so i went home with my spam musubi and my mix plate and a random container of poke (yum), a random container of mac salad (yum), and a random container of pickled cucumbers (yum). a++, will order late from them again.
wednesday was the anniversary of the day the good voters of nevada passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting people who'd participated in a duel from voting or holding office. they voted on this in 1889. it may or may not still be on the books.
in honor of tomorrow being
you can preorder squishable toilet paper. you know, if your life needs a toilet roll plushie in it.
binderary adventures
Feb. 13th, 2026 04:34 pmehydeFebruary is Renegade Bindery's "encourage everyone to make a lot of books and learn new things" month and while I'm not going as all-out as some people, and haven't managed to watch any of the presentations yet, I am doing a bit more bookbinding work than I have in the past few months!
The main project I'm working on is for Fandom Trumps Hate from last year, and I will admit I procrastinated on it because I was honestly intimidated with how much my recipient donated. But I'm now at a point where I think I can safely say I'll finish in the next day or two!
I also finished up my own copy of <i>How Dare You?!</i> being prompted by the drama's release (I bound it for last year's Cnovel bookbinding exchange, and my own copy has been sitting half finished since the summer). I've typeset two small books since the start of the month--first, the script for the <i>War of the Worlds</i> audiodrama, and second, a short Guardian fic that I read and immediately went "this needs to be a tiny book!" I have been neglecting working on my dad's late Christmas present, which honestly also doesn't need a lot more work, but what it does need is maps and I'm putting that off (it's a binding of my great great grandfather's civil war diary). Another project I'll probably finish up soon is Mo Du, which someone else typeset for last year's exchange, so I've printed and sewn their typeset but haven't made the covers yet. There are a lot of good typesets from past cnovel exchanges, some other I want to bind are Guardian, Lord Seventh, Kaleidoscope of Death, and Purely By Accident.
(...yes. Bookbinding is very much an "eyes bigger than stomach" hobby. I have a few fanfics typeset and ready to print/bind, too).
Recently read and would recommend: <i>I, Your Emperor, Have Been Wronged!</i> and I will put the same promo I wrote up on tumblr under the cut
( Read more... )
The main project I'm working on is for Fandom Trumps Hate from last year, and I will admit I procrastinated on it because I was honestly intimidated with how much my recipient donated. But I'm now at a point where I think I can safely say I'll finish in the next day or two!
I also finished up my own copy of <i>How Dare You?!</i> being prompted by the drama's release (I bound it for last year's Cnovel bookbinding exchange, and my own copy has been sitting half finished since the summer). I've typeset two small books since the start of the month--first, the script for the <i>War of the Worlds</i> audiodrama, and second, a short Guardian fic that I read and immediately went "this needs to be a tiny book!" I have been neglecting working on my dad's late Christmas present, which honestly also doesn't need a lot more work, but what it does need is maps and I'm putting that off (it's a binding of my great great grandfather's civil war diary). Another project I'll probably finish up soon is Mo Du, which someone else typeset for last year's exchange, so I've printed and sewn their typeset but haven't made the covers yet. There are a lot of good typesets from past cnovel exchanges, some other I want to bind are Guardian, Lord Seventh, Kaleidoscope of Death, and Purely By Accident.
(...yes. Bookbinding is very much an "eyes bigger than stomach" hobby. I have a few fanfics typeset and ready to print/bind, too).
Recently read and would recommend: <i>I, Your Emperor, Have Been Wronged!</i> and I will put the same promo I wrote up on tumblr under the cut
( Read more... )
A Haymarket run
Feb. 13th, 2026 12:52 pmmagidI went to Haymarket (Boston's weekly open-air market that’s been meeting there for about three centuries at this point) for the first time in ages. I was in need of onions and potatoes, and open to whatever else appealed. Few things are local or organic, but the prices are excellent; caveat emptor definitely applies, since things can be ‘cook now’ in their lifecycle.
What I bought:
- a bunch of flat-leaf parsley ($1)
- a head of hydroponic butter lettuce ($1)
- 2 eggplants ($3)
- a pineapple ($2)
- 10 lb onions ($6)
- 2 bags of potatoes (3-4 lb total; $2)
There were berries for tomorrow’s celebration of romantic love, a choice of strawberry or raspberry in heart-shaped containers (and many more in regular quadrilateral packaging, as usual). I’m a bit leery of getting berries there, having had one subpar experience, so was easily able to resist.
What I bought:
- a bunch of flat-leaf parsley ($1)
- a head of hydroponic butter lettuce ($1)
- 2 eggplants ($3)
- a pineapple ($2)
- 10 lb onions ($6)
- 2 bags of potatoes (3-4 lb total; $2)
There were berries for tomorrow’s celebration of romantic love, a choice of strawberry or raspberry in heart-shaped containers (and many more in regular quadrilateral packaging, as usual). I’m a bit leery of getting berries there, having had one subpar experience, so was easily able to resist.
Heated Rivalry
Feb. 12th, 2026 10:40 pmpsocopteraHeated Rivalry, 2024 six-episode TV series hockey romance. Season one, I guess, since I guess with it such a hit they're going to do more. I was just as delighted by it as it was a safe bet I would be. An excellent exception to my general TV non-watching. (I guess that's a weird thing to say at a time when I've been watching enormous-for-me amounts of television watching Stranger Things, but there's like Family Activity Watching and then Personal Watching and they are different.)
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Feb. 12th, 2026 10:09 pmpsocopteraLast Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo, 2021 YA historical. This one's been on my list since 2021 and I'm not sure what made me decide that now was the time. (Looking for some f/f to balance my m/m media consumption watching the gay hockey show, maybe.) Really well done - you can see why the cover is covered in awards - but also kind of wild to read at this moment in history when our fascist government is so desperate to take us back to this time of police raids on gay bars, criminalization of cross-dressing, and taking people's papers and threatening them with denaturalization and deportation. But I guess it's hopeful to think that Lily and Kath of the book are going to make it to Pride parades in their 30s and the 2004 San Francisco marriage licenses in their 60s, and maybe it won't even take us quite so long to work our way back this time. Anyways, Lo does an amazing job bringing a time and place to life, so much great detail here, highly recommended.
Can you see me? I'm waiting for the right time
Feb. 11th, 2026 11:18 pmsovayMy poem "The Principle of the Thing" has been accepted by Weird Fiction Quarterly. It is the ghost poem I wrote last spring for Werner Heisenberg: 2025 finally called it out. 2026 hasn't yet rendered it démodé.
Branching off The Perceptual Form of the City (1954–59), I am still tracking down the publications of György Kepes whose debt to Gestalt psychology my mother pegged instantly from his interdisciplinary interests in perception, but my local library system furnished me with Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (1960) and What Time Is This Place? (1972) and even more than urban planning, they make me think of psychogeography. An entire chapter in the latter is entitled "Boston Time" and illustrates itself with layers of photographs of a walk down Washington Street in the present of the book's composition and its past, singling out not only buildings and former buildings but weathered milestones and ghost signs, commemorative plaques and graffiti, dates established, construction stamps, spray paint, initials in concrete. "The trees are seasonal clocks, very precise in spring and fall." "The street name refers to the edge of the ancient peninsula. (If you look closely at the ground, you can trace the outline of the former shore.)" "The railroad, which in its day was cut ruthlessly through the close-packed docks and sailing ships, is now buried in its turn." Five and a half decades behind me, the book itself is a slice of history, a snapshot in the middle of the urban renewal that Lynch evocatively and not inaccurately describes as "steamrolling." I recognize the image of the city formed by the eponymously accumulated interviews in the older book and it is a city of Theseus. Scollay Square disappeared between the two publications. Lynch's Charles River Dam isn't mine. Blankly industrial spaces on his map have gentrified in over my lifetime. Don't even ask about wayfinding by the landmarks of the skyline. I do think he would have liked the harborwalk, since it reinforces one of Boston's edges as sea. And whether I agree entirely or at all with his assertion:
If we examine the feelings that accompany daily life, we find that historic monuments occupy a small place. Our strongest emotions concern our own lives and the lives of our family or friends because we have known them personally. The crucial reminders of the past are therefore those connected with our own childhood, or with our parents' or perhaps our grandparents' lives. Remarkable things are directly associated with memorable events in those lives: births, deaths, marriages, partings, graduations. To live in the same surroundings that one recalls from earliest memories is a satisfaction denied to most Americans today. The continuity of kin lacks a corresponding continuity of place. We are interested in a street on which our father may have lived as a boy; it helps to explain him to us and strengthens our own sense of identity, But our grandfather or great-grandfather, whom we never knew, is already in the remote past; his house is "historical."
it is impossible for me not to read it and hear "Isn't the house you were born in the most interesting house in the world to you? Don't you want to know how your father lived, and his father? Well, there are more ways than one of getting close to your ancestors." None of mine came from this city I walk.
The rest of my day has been a landfill on fire.
Branching off The Perceptual Form of the City (1954–59), I am still tracking down the publications of György Kepes whose debt to Gestalt psychology my mother pegged instantly from his interdisciplinary interests in perception, but my local library system furnished me with Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (1960) and What Time Is This Place? (1972) and even more than urban planning, they make me think of psychogeography. An entire chapter in the latter is entitled "Boston Time" and illustrates itself with layers of photographs of a walk down Washington Street in the present of the book's composition and its past, singling out not only buildings and former buildings but weathered milestones and ghost signs, commemorative plaques and graffiti, dates established, construction stamps, spray paint, initials in concrete. "The trees are seasonal clocks, very precise in spring and fall." "The street name refers to the edge of the ancient peninsula. (If you look closely at the ground, you can trace the outline of the former shore.)" "The railroad, which in its day was cut ruthlessly through the close-packed docks and sailing ships, is now buried in its turn." Five and a half decades behind me, the book itself is a slice of history, a snapshot in the middle of the urban renewal that Lynch evocatively and not inaccurately describes as "steamrolling." I recognize the image of the city formed by the eponymously accumulated interviews in the older book and it is a city of Theseus. Scollay Square disappeared between the two publications. Lynch's Charles River Dam isn't mine. Blankly industrial spaces on his map have gentrified in over my lifetime. Don't even ask about wayfinding by the landmarks of the skyline. I do think he would have liked the harborwalk, since it reinforces one of Boston's edges as sea. And whether I agree entirely or at all with his assertion:
If we examine the feelings that accompany daily life, we find that historic monuments occupy a small place. Our strongest emotions concern our own lives and the lives of our family or friends because we have known them personally. The crucial reminders of the past are therefore those connected with our own childhood, or with our parents' or perhaps our grandparents' lives. Remarkable things are directly associated with memorable events in those lives: births, deaths, marriages, partings, graduations. To live in the same surroundings that one recalls from earliest memories is a satisfaction denied to most Americans today. The continuity of kin lacks a corresponding continuity of place. We are interested in a street on which our father may have lived as a boy; it helps to explain him to us and strengthens our own sense of identity, But our grandfather or great-grandfather, whom we never knew, is already in the remote past; his house is "historical."
it is impossible for me not to read it and hear "Isn't the house you were born in the most interesting house in the world to you? Don't you want to know how your father lived, and his father? Well, there are more ways than one of getting close to your ancestors." None of mine came from this city I walk.
The rest of my day has been a landfill on fire.
Wednesday Reading Meme for Feb 11 2026
Feb. 11th, 2026 08:30 pmkitewithfishWhat I’ve Read
The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein – I think I get why people love this book so much. Rowan the steerswoman feels like a very centered and clear kind of person. Her calling has a purity to it – to find and share knowledge – and that seems like the kind of philosophical and moral outlook that could be catnip to the right reader. And here I am! Just, the final chapters of this book are just a conversation where she tells someone the truth, and it changes the world. Moral dilemmas, sneakiness, and a rising suspicion that we are living not in a fantasy world, but a science fiction one where some people are keeping secrets.
Her books are a bit hard to get a hold of but you can buy them via the links on her website, here https://www.rosemarykirstein.com/
Fanfic round up - Cover of Knight by ErinPtah is just part of an ongoing story of the Disney/Marvel Moon Knight tv show spinning off to cover how our superhero community would handle someone who has multiple personalities. This is part of a long and ongoing series of fics that cover Marc Spector figuring himself and his alters out. It's fun and charming and I think I will read more.
What I’m Reading Now
City by Clifford Simak – This is a book that came up in last year’s Arisia’s discussion about old classics. The short stories in this ‘fixup’ novel are linked together by interstitial reflections from an academic dog, who is reflecting on the stories as the surviving literature of a post-human earth where dogs are served by self-building robots, but no one can confirm that humans ever existed except as a literary trope. The stories are weirdly prophetic and some are didactic, but, they are making interesting points about the knock-on effects of future technology in small bites, which charmed me. The first story posits a world where the trend towards suburban living, already changing cities in Simak's lifetime, pushed to the point where everyone in the US lives on 20 acre private wilderness retreats and commutes to work by private plane.
(I have a habit of starting a book on vacation, loving it, and then immediately forgetting I started it when I get home. Trying to break that cycle.)
Latchkey by goldkirk – Tim Drake is semi adopted by the Bats pre-death of Jason Todd, and it’s episodic and charming and indulgent.
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfish – The library had this, and so far, I am enjoying the oddness of the thing greatly. It is however a little too spooky for bedtime reading. It was on my To Read list for last week, tho, so we are trending in the correct direction.
What I’ll Read Next
Monks Hood – Ellis Peters
Master of Poisons – Andrea Hairston
Frankenstein
The Brightness Between Us -Eliot Screfer
The Husky and His White Cat Shizun – Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (I picked this up after seeing that it was beloved by a fic author whose work I recently enjoyed but I have no idea what I am looking at here)
The Craft of Lace Knitting by Barbara Walker
Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country by Emily Tesh
Viriconium by John M Harrison
I also bought some books!
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers (who I follow on Tumblr)
The Glass Pearls
To Ride a Rising Storm
Elisha Barber
Necromancy book club picked The Scholomance Series to read - Naomi Novik
Other things!
I have decided to try Sock Madness year 20 with a friend. It's a speed knitting competition - you get free patterns for socks, and you must knit two socks according to spec. It's a good balance of technical challenge and friendly competition - I'm nowhere fast enough to get in the running for the actual prize, but merely participating gets you access to all the patterns for free after the actual race is over. It's been a good stretch of my skills in the past - I had viewed it as leveling up! And maybe I don't actually use the socks that much, but I can give them out to people who are sock worthy.
https://www.ravelry.com/groups/sock-madness-forever
I watched If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which is a anxiety-inducing character study of a woman who is figuring out, under fairly harrowing conditions, that she is really fucking things up in her life. It's like watching a coyote decide to chew its leg off to get out of a trap, only the trap is a child with complex medical needs and also your own personality flaws. Really good - Rose Byrne deserves the Oscar but I know she won't get it.
The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein – I think I get why people love this book so much. Rowan the steerswoman feels like a very centered and clear kind of person. Her calling has a purity to it – to find and share knowledge – and that seems like the kind of philosophical and moral outlook that could be catnip to the right reader. And here I am! Just, the final chapters of this book are just a conversation where she tells someone the truth, and it changes the world. Moral dilemmas, sneakiness, and a rising suspicion that we are living not in a fantasy world, but a science fiction one where some people are keeping secrets.
Her books are a bit hard to get a hold of but you can buy them via the links on her website, here https://www.rosemarykirstein.com/
Fanfic round up - Cover of Knight by ErinPtah is just part of an ongoing story of the Disney/Marvel Moon Knight tv show spinning off to cover how our superhero community would handle someone who has multiple personalities. This is part of a long and ongoing series of fics that cover Marc Spector figuring himself and his alters out. It's fun and charming and I think I will read more.
What I’m Reading Now
City by Clifford Simak – This is a book that came up in last year’s Arisia’s discussion about old classics. The short stories in this ‘fixup’ novel are linked together by interstitial reflections from an academic dog, who is reflecting on the stories as the surviving literature of a post-human earth where dogs are served by self-building robots, but no one can confirm that humans ever existed except as a literary trope. The stories are weirdly prophetic and some are didactic, but, they are making interesting points about the knock-on effects of future technology in small bites, which charmed me. The first story posits a world where the trend towards suburban living, already changing cities in Simak's lifetime, pushed to the point where everyone in the US lives on 20 acre private wilderness retreats and commutes to work by private plane.
(I have a habit of starting a book on vacation, loving it, and then immediately forgetting I started it when I get home. Trying to break that cycle.)
Latchkey by goldkirk – Tim Drake is semi adopted by the Bats pre-death of Jason Todd, and it’s episodic and charming and indulgent.
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfish – The library had this, and so far, I am enjoying the oddness of the thing greatly. It is however a little too spooky for bedtime reading. It was on my To Read list for last week, tho, so we are trending in the correct direction.
What I’ll Read Next
Monks Hood – Ellis Peters
Master of Poisons – Andrea Hairston
Frankenstein
The Brightness Between Us -Eliot Screfer
The Husky and His White Cat Shizun – Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (I picked this up after seeing that it was beloved by a fic author whose work I recently enjoyed but I have no idea what I am looking at here)
The Craft of Lace Knitting by Barbara Walker
Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country by Emily Tesh
Viriconium by John M Harrison
I also bought some books!
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers (who I follow on Tumblr)
The Glass Pearls
To Ride a Rising Storm
Elisha Barber
Necromancy book club picked The Scholomance Series to read - Naomi Novik
Other things!
I have decided to try Sock Madness year 20 with a friend. It's a speed knitting competition - you get free patterns for socks, and you must knit two socks according to spec. It's a good balance of technical challenge and friendly competition - I'm nowhere fast enough to get in the running for the actual prize, but merely participating gets you access to all the patterns for free after the actual race is over. It's been a good stretch of my skills in the past - I had viewed it as leveling up! And maybe I don't actually use the socks that much, but I can give them out to people who are sock worthy.
https://www.ravelry.com/groups/sock-madness-forever
I watched If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which is a anxiety-inducing character study of a woman who is figuring out, under fairly harrowing conditions, that she is really fucking things up in her life. It's like watching a coyote decide to chew its leg off to get out of a trap, only the trap is a child with complex medical needs and also your own personality flaws. Really good - Rose Byrne deserves the Oscar but I know she won't get it.