unicourtney

I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):

-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading

-four questions about four separate items that require one answer (card) per item
-a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question
-Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices

I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via email -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.

Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.

My next planned break is from October 23 - November 6.

I take reading requests from whenever this post goes up on Friday night until 8pm US Central Time Saturday.

For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.

I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

marthawells

I don't think I posted about this yet: https://us.macmillan.com/tours/martha-wells-queen-demon/

There's more info at that link, but here's a brief list of the tour stops and dates:

- Mon. Oct. 6 at 7:30pm: Brookline Booksmith with Holly Black, offsite at Arts at the Armory (Brookline, MA)

- Tues. Oct. 7 at 7pm: Politics & Prose (Union Market location) moderated by Leigha McReynolds (Washington DC)

- Wed. Oct. 8 at 7pm: The Strand, with Meg Elison (NYC, NY)

- Fri. Oct. 10 at 6pm: Let’s Play Books, with Chuck Wendig, offsite at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA)

- Tues. Oct. 14 at 7pm, Third Place Books (Seattle, WA)

- Wed. Oct. 15 at 7pm, Iron Dog Books, with Nalo Hopkinson offsite at Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island (Vancouver, BC, Canada)

- Thurs. Oct. 16 at 7pm, Powell's (Cedar Hill location) with Jenn Reese (Beaverton, OR)

- Mon. Oct. 20 at 7pm: Bookpeople, with Ehigbor Okosun (Austin, TX)

- Tue. Oct. 21 at 6:30pm: Murder by the Book (Houston, TX)

- Thurs. Oct. 23 at 6pm: Nowhere Bookshop (San Antonio, TX)

- Saturday Nov. 8-9 Texas Book Festival, Austin TX

- Sat. Nov. 15 at 2pm: Hyperbole Bookstore, offsite at Ringer Library (College Station, TX)

serafaery

all is right with the world for there are persimmons on a neighborhood tree that are ready to pick and take home for the most delicious snax.

my happiness calendar for today reads: You are the only magic you need

:)

I am exhausted. I had an amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing time at coffin club last night, that was the best night i can remember there in recent memory, definitely the best since my birthday or perhaps for the entire calendar year. Was grateful that some folks were away and the crowd was young and sparkly and so sweet, I felt so safe. I cannot even count how many compliments I got, almost all from women, they were all so kind, and the men were respectful and easy to be around. People were happy but not *too* happy (read: not wasted). Derek SERVED. The music was HOT.

I stayed too late and then had sexytime with Joshter and then just could not sleep, my sleep tracker says I got 3 1/2 hours of sleep, oops. I will crash any moment.

Still have soooooooooooooo much to catch up on, Wednesday wrecked me and Thursday was rough too, I am so so tired omg. But I MUST upload documents and pay rents, and I *really* want to be baking an apple pie by 4pm so that I can bring it to Cynthia at 6pm. If I want a nap, it has to start very very soon. I can hopefully upload documents while the pie is in the oven?

I had a big long hard bike ride with Cynthia this morning and it was exactly what I needed.

Her friend Hanne is not doing great with her breast cancer treatment - the chemo is really rough on her and so far her tumors are not shrinking :( We are worried.

I am just finishing up All the way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert and I do NOT recommend it. I do think it is heartfelt but unfortunately there is too much privilege wrapped up in it for me, personally. And wow, the way some people handle death is so... repulsive. (This book documents the author's falling in love with her best friend and then watching her die of pancreatic and liver cancer.) I feel very, VERY bristly at anyone who treats the dying as if they are already dead. And also at enablers who abandon their charges when they become "unmanageable." (But that's my recovery talking, and Liz does discover her own addictions and codependency issues in this book and goes to 12 step to get sober. So that's progress. It's just sad it took her that long to figure it out.)

I unfortunately stumbled upon a review of this book yesterday that called her style "priv-lit" (privileged literature - aka rich white american lady lit) and suggested a re-titling of "All the way to the Bank," and talked about it being exploitative of her partner's death. :( I dunno. I was hoping I could find some gems but. I dunno. I regret trying.

It is GRIPPING, though, there is no arguing that Liz is a wonderful writer and I could not put it down and I will finish it (I'm almost done). For a very dark bummer of a distraction, it would do in a pinch.

I am so lucky in so many ways, the sun is out and I feel so so hopeful. Dancing hurt my foot and my back a little, but not so much that I couldn't bike up a storm with Cynthia this morning, I was able to keep up with that beast of a biker (she used to be a professional distance road racer) through a sleep-deprived mania of happiness just to be in her presence and up and moving in the morning in a body that was only very quietly achey, instead of the screaming it's been doing for the last several months.

I have hope that I can work around my arthritis, going forward, and that I am making the right decisions, so far, in my communication with this newly fragile form of a body I have been gifted with.

I am endlessly grateful for this gift.

I am also SO GLAD the house I work out of was booked today so that I was forced to take an extra day off, I need it desperately after getting raked over the coals this week - Josh and I both.

Cannot wait to spend tonight and tomorrow night with my best friends. I will mushroom hunt with Tyler tomorrow afternoon. I will work all day Sunday and Monday. All is well. I even cleaned the bathroom sink and swept the floors! I've been cooking tons of beautiful food and eating well, my body is thankful and so am I.

As I was getting dressed and debating the skimpy strappy shorts or the tendril skirt, Josh and I agreed that I should go for the skimpy stuff, because, "who knows how much longer I'll be able to get away with it. I doubt I'll be wearing these when I'm 60." :)

Coffin Club is so spiritually nourishing, for me. So so grateful for the goth community, and my little dark spooky home away from home.

The Finch self-care app has a spooky manor theme this month, speaking of spooky! At the end we get a little black cat micropet! I am over the moon about this :D

malada

If it hasn't sunken in the morass of tRump's latest gaffe, dumbass move or outrage, there was an AI video of him posted by him talking about a wonderful new technology called MedBeds which ill basically cure all illnesses and restore health. He claimed (or at least his AI double claimed) that MedBed centers were already in place and everyone could apply for a MedBed card to get this advanced treatment.

The stupid, it burns.

This technology only exists in fantasy and science fiction. It doesn't exist in real life. Yet the president of the USA was pushing it. The video was taken down pretty quickly but the Internet is Forever.

Someone had to come up with the idea of MedBeds being available right now. Someone had to have the idea of tRump pushing it - complete with a MedBed card. Someone had to use AI to create the video. Someone had to have access to tRump's social media account to post it. Was tRump actually convinced that this technology existed and was ready to deploy? Did someone hand him the video and get his approval to post it? Did tRump post it himself or did some subordinate do it? Any way you paint it, it shows that tRump is either not really in control, or is to stupid to realize this was a complete hoax.

Who ever crafted this knew "MedBed" just rolls of the tongue and is something tRump could easily swallow and say. It rhymes. It's simple. It's totally delusional. Yet, it got posted.

Who's in charge here?

Just one more thing to worry about.

Current Mood: curious

weofodthignen

Overnight, in defiance of weather forecasts, we had some real rain. Puddles all over the place, and it continued to rain very lightly during the morning. So I got a damp dog on my bed and I don't have to water for a week, unless it flips back to hot enough that I have to hand water trees and flowers.

Yesterday I passed by a car park and a long line of people with fruit-and-veg boxes snaked around it. Presumably grocery distribution. I was on the other side of the street so was able to not appear to have noticed.

anne_d

Instead of doing housework, I made one more pair of crotalia-style earrings today. I remembered having an old 3-strand necklace clasp in my hoard and I was able to locate it. After that it was a matter of choosing the rest of the bits. I decided to do something more like the originals, so I used white freshwater pearls, brass wire, and some gold coils meant to go on custom earwires. Those have got to be 45-50 years old, from when Aged Mum and I were learning jewelry making from booklets we bought at Grieger’s. I guess being a packrat comes in handy sometimes, but I sure feel ancient.

marthawells

I did a playlist for Witch King (https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/627157.html) when it first came out in 2023, and now here's one for Queen Demon:

Seven Devils - Florence + Machine

Burning - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Bando - ANNA with MadMan and Gemitaiz

Bringing Murder to the Land - Anton Newcombe and Dot Allison

Bulletproof vs. Release Me - The Outfit

I Owe You Nothing - Seinabo Sey

W.I.T.C.H. - Devon Cole

Egun (theme from Manhunt) - Danielle Ponder

Warm - SG Lewis

Disease - Lady Gaga

Which Witch (Demo) - Florence + Machine

you should see me in a crown - Billie Eilish

Bakunawa - Rudy Ibarra, with June Millington, Han Han, and Ouida.

taz_39

WEDNESDAY

I was awake too early, but that's ok. Breakfast and working on upcoming Foodie Finds, then I dusted the furniture and mopped the tile. With that pretty much all of the standard chores are done except sweeping the front sidewalk and back deck before Raven gets here.

Before lunch I drove to an Ace Hardware for ReRack, which is a paste to repair dishwasher racks. I'd noticed rust on the tips of ours this morning. Got it and then drove 30 minutes to a shopping center in Kissimmee proper for a Yankee Candle store. Jameson and I both like the "Be Thankful" candle scent, and it's only available in-store at this time of year...and OF COURSE they didn't have it! I should have called ahead. So instead I ordered one on Ebay, then drove to my favorite bagel place to get Egg, French Toast, Cinnamon Raisin, and Blueberry.

Back home for lunch and a very grudging bass trombone practice. After that I applied the ReRack which is very gooey and messy and smells terrible. On top of that patch job I'm going to put dishwasher tine caps, which will show up tomorrow along with the new bath mats I've ordered.

When it comes to things like the bath mats and rusting dishwasher rack, Jameson either hasn't noticed, doesn't care about it, or hasn't had time to deal with it while he's working two jobs, having surgeries once a year, still taking side jobs/gigs, and trying to have a social life with me gone. And that's why I'm not annoyed when I come across something in the house that needs maintenance or repair. To me it represents a chance to pay Jameson back for all these years of having a beautiful house to live in, rent-free, with a partner who has been endlessly supportive and is a very large reason why I have my dream job. Far from being annoyed, it makes me happy to contribute to the upkeep of the house, and cover things so that Jameson doesn't have to worry about them.

(He COULD still throw out the moldy cheese though. Eew!)

For the remaining daylight hours I got to relax while Jameson sent more pics from Hawaii.
He went on a hike and enjoyed breathtaking views, and local flora and fauna! I'm so glad he's having an adventure.

thumbnail_78104028966__1FC4B212-81B6-423E-BEDA-5A76F9ED6D8B.jpg

thumbnail_78104136913__9A5258D0-9DA7-4488-80A0-B67CB0328D42.jpg

At dinnertime I had a special treat planned.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is the Americanized Chinese buffet. I LOVE trying lots of different things, I love eating way too much once in a while, and I love how everything is always so delicious and bad for you! Yummmm :D There's a new one that's just a few months old near our house. Jameson never eats at these places because the MSG makes him dizzy and ill. Now that he's away it's the perfect time to indulge!

Plate One: Misc chicken (teriyaki, orange, kabob), piece of turbot fish, frog leg, green beans, "pulled pork", coconut shrimp, stuffed crab, and custard bun.

Everything was very good except the chicken kabob, which was too dry even for me. I should have gotten a bigger piece of turbot fish as they didn't restock it once it was gone, and it was very good, soft and flavorful. Found out later that it's a delicacy and was glad I got to try it!

The leaf-wrapped thing was just labeled "pulled pork." It turned out to be filled with a delicious savory sticky rice, pork, and mushrooms. Later on I looked it up and they're called zongzi and are considered a type of dumpling. I loved it and will keep an eye out for them in the future.

Plate Two was a sushi plate: Salmon x tamagoyaki, strawberry x krab (this one was weird, who thought to do this?), beef x seafood, torched octopus (the white thing behind the beef), salmon sashimi, squid salad, salmon-wrapped mango, and another frog leg.

Honestly, if you get the chance to try frog legs, set your inhibitions and cultural conditioning aside and try one because you ARE missing out. They are like a really good chicken wing. Whatever seasoning is used in the Chinese buffet version is light, crispy, peppery, and both sweet and salty.

Plate Three was dessert plate: banana, tapioca and chocolate puddings, Jell-o, coconut cake, strawberry mousse, mango with Tajin...and a spicy baby octopus because I hadn't noticed them until dessert, and I love them!

Actually glad I'd missed the octopi because these were overly salty. Normally I would've gotten ice cream too, but this place had the prepackaged cups and that's lame :p I like when they have the ice milk soft serve instead.

This is a pretty good Chinese buffet. Besides the turbot fish and frog legs, other "premium" items included a crawfish boil, crab legs, sliced sirloin, and a hibachi option, but those were not enticing to me tonight. Still, I got to enjoy some favorite treats as well as try two new things, the turbot fish and the zongzi! I went home full and happy and ready for a NAP.

Instead I did laundry, had a cup of tea, and tried to come up with an Animal Kingdom itinerary for my sister when she visits in a few days. She's GOTTA at least walk through Pandora, and of course see the Tree of Life up close. We have reservations at Tiffins too. But I wonder what rides she'd like...

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THURSDAY

My Thursday would bore you to tears, I fear.

Sorting and repacking luggage
Bass trombone practice
Lunch
Working on Foodie Finds
Updating my social media apps/pages with linktree and fixing broken clips
Chatting with Jameson
Finally deciding on and buying Jameson's main/big birthday gift
Reading
Watching a brief rain shower
Putting down the new bath mats
Installing the dishwasher tine caps
Writing my step-grandma a letter
Dinner
Rewatching Hazbin Hotel in preparation for season 3 coming soon

The Universe must have heard me say "I'm happy to contribute to the upkeep of the house" because the fridge water filter light came on today. There goes another $80! I'll pick it up tomorrow when I do a grocery run for Jameson and Raven.

But the Universe must love me still, because today we received our annual set of Disney castmember food coupons! This means that I'll be able to treat Raven to FREE snacks during her park visit! We'll probably get a significant discount on our meal at Tiffins as well. Thanks, Boss Mouse!

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Friday: Bass practice, any last-minute prep for Raven's arrival, and picking up Raven at the airport.

Saturday: Day at Animal Kingdom with my sis!

Sunday: Jameson arrives at 7:30am from Hawaii, I'll probably pick him up. Raven leaves the same day but her flight isn't until noon so after dropping Jameson off I'll probably turn right back around to take her to the airport. What the rest of the day looks like depends on what Jameson wants to do (I suspect unpack, have dinner, and go straight to bed haha)

ruric

Backdating this to 1st Oct because I meant to post before bed and forgot!

The world is on fire everywhere and I'm mostly continuing to deal with that via Twitter, Threads and Instagram and trying to keep over here focused on the good things or attempts to do good things.

On that note

I signed up for Action for Happiness's Optimistic October and the task for day 1 was to write down 3 things you're looking forward to this month so mine are:

1. Seeing two films which are part of the BFI film festival with

ravurian on 18 and 19 October.

2. Our community work day at my allotment site on 25 October

3. Coming back to the cottage at the end of this month to work a week remotely again.

Having only managed half the prompts in the September round of #orjenise100 on Insta I'll be carrying on through October. However 183 items left my flat so I'm counting it a success. As well as picking up the missing prompts I'm also looking at

bitesizedcleaning's Organisational October challenge. The task for the 1st October was to make a plan and I'm using my ever evolving To Do List for that!

And I've transformed Project 65 days (do as much as I can of my To Do's by end of Sept) into Project 92 days (keep going until end of December) and plan to do at least 4 things a day which are either tasks from To Do List or are part of Optimistic/Organisational October.

On that note yesterday:

1. I organised and deleted email from a couple of subfolders on my main email account. Now down to a total of 14,792 emails, 14,700 of which are archived in subfolders. Down from over 35,000 last year so it is progress!

2. Cleared up my free Canva account so I can see the images I really need and deleted the rest.

3. As I'm here in Wales and away from London and the flat I did some gardening, sorting out two flowerbeds (cut back overgrown plants, planted some autumn colour and bulbs for spring) and cut back the herb bed.

4. Signed 4 petitions - I already donate a healthy chunk of cash each month to a number of charities and would bankrupt myself if I threw cash at every deserving cause - but I do have time to sign petitions and write to my MP and councillors. So 4 petitions signed yesterday. Need to keep a proper track of these!

Small steps.

weofodthignen

I tried something new and ran the sprinkler in the last position before breakfast, rather than squeezing it in in the evening. Then I did a load of laundry and started to put it on the line ... and it started to rain lightly.

When I got through stuffing the laundry in the dryer, I took out the recycling, and on my return found Monty sitting on the back porch steps. Brought him out food, and Prudence also appeared, so I had to bring her out a dish, too. I guess the porch room was a more congenial place to eat out of the damp than the front porch.

Not much rain though, and we got enough sun in the afternoon for the second load of laundry to dry on the line.

cosmolinguist

I enjoyed the sunset function last night -- after some faffing I managed to get the right amount of light to start from (fairly bright?) and a sound I like (crickets! I really miss crickets, they sound like summer to me and remind me of being a kid).

I fell asleep before the thing went totally dark, which to be fair could be because of the melatonin I treated myself to last night...but I haven't had great success with them lately.

Maybe it was just how tired I was, after a busy day at work, straight in to counseling, then eating dinner, then off to the local queer club where I'd agreed to turn up early and help set up, and by the time we left, about half past 9, I was so tired that I was yawning uncontrollably on the short ride home (and very glad that D had driven me, so that I didn't have to walk or try to get the bus home.

Today felt similarly intense: work, then an important and positive but also exhausting and anxiety-inducing conversation about U.S. politics, then I made dinner, and by the time I'd eaten my parents were ready to talk. I've missed them like three Sundays in a row so couldn't dodge it too much longer.

And that was a mental and emotional marathon of a conversation too: my grandma's house will be sold in two weeks, the upshot of which is my mom's horrible sister was saying horrible things about my mom at an extended-family event and when my mom asked if I wanted my share of the money from the house sale I said "Absolutely not," and she said "I knew you'd say that, but you're going to have some anyway, and I want you to use some of it to get yourself something nice..." Well okay then, I'll be a tax haven or whatever for my parents this one time.

And they talked about politics at me a bit (which again we don't disagree on but I'm so spoiled by my little bubble where people seek consent and check in during these heavy conversations that this drives me up a wall now).

And then we got on to their computer needing to be replaced because support for Windows 10 is ending and they thought they could just take their PC to Best Buy and get the Quicken transferred to a new laptop... I was trying to disabuse them of this notion gently when their iPad battery died because they believe you must always let it discharge completely and they never use the iPad while it's plugged in.

I'd wanted to go to the gym this evening, and suddenly it was bedtime. And my head was too full of things.

And actually I had to rearrange my bedroom a little for the alarm clock. I don't have a bedside table next to the bed; my room has a lot of fitted closets and drawers so there's only really one place for the bed to go and it means the door -- which is at a weird angle to the rest of the room because of the way the whole upstairs is, and the fact that almost every door up here opens the opposite way to the way that'd make the best use of space -- leaves no room on this side of the bed.

Mostly I've gotten around this by using a floor lamp as a bedside lamp, and shoving a piece of wood between the mattress and the bed frame which I use for bedside stuff: glasses, water, phone. But the piece-of-wood shelf is too low for the alarm clock: not much of the light would actually end up in my line of sight which would defeat the whole purpose of the thing. Also it wasn't easy to get plugged in.

Last night I balanced the clock on some good thick books, and I don't know if the light would have woken me up so I set it to make a normal sound. Then I woke up 45 minutes before my alarm went off this morning and leaned over to look at the clock to see when it would start lighting up, like a little kid. So I don't know any more yet about how or if that will work.

So tonight I've bodged a slightly better solution for clock placement next to my bed (and just as I'm writing this do I realize there's a better way to rearrange the things that need to be plugged in because the lamp has a long cord...always so much to think about!). And I hope the nice cricket sounds and dimming orange light do their magic!

I do wonder how well this supplementary daylight works on someone whose eyes are as bad as mine.

But I really should put my phone down now.

serafaery

In a lot of physical pain today, I guess I messed up my back doing silks yesterday. Maybe doing silks while crying is not ideal.

The tears were mostly from the stress of the home buying process. It's gutting in its terror, for me, but Josh wants this so badly and I have let him down enough times. He has done so, so much for me, I need to put some faith in him that we can do this. I would rather not. My childhood home was foreclosed on. Watching the bank take back your parents' house is an awful experience, there are no words for the way it disrupts, permanently, any psychological notions (however false) of safely, stability, a place to call home, any sort of safety net. (My grandparents died when I was young or before I was born, sick and in pain, we have no other connected relatives, there has never been anything left to fall back on.) I don't want to experience anything like that ever again.

So, I cried a lot, yesterday, signing away my life savings for an unknown risk.

I was not happy with my realtor, and then embarrassed at my own behavior (I picked him out, after all), and he called me specifically to try to help calm me down a little bit, and offered gently that he could understand, because his parents also had their house foreclosed on, so, he could see why I would feel fearful and overwhelmed. It was kind of him to listen and have some real patience with my over-emotional over-sharing. It was nice not to feel judged or dismissed for being silly or overdramatic, as is usually the way when I try to make adult/major financial decisions and get overwhelmed and paralyzed.

It's an odd sensation, to take on a massive, incomprehensible debt, and pour ones life's savings (however meager mine happens to be) but a debt that at least you can live inside? How bizarre.

Anyway it's not set in stone until closing so we'll see how it goes.

I wanted to get SO MUCH done today, but I still haven't even managed to get my appointment schedule out to open appts for the month, and here it is 3pm, the sun is out after hours of rain, most of the day is already gone and I feel like I've done nothing. But I've been busy and nauseated all day working. I wish I had more to show for it. I'll get there.

Hot flashes get more bearable when the weather cools, lol.

I need a shower desperately.

Need to box up an order and ship it, visit the neighbor's plants one last time, send out checks and pay rent and pick up prescriptions and I reeeeeeeeeally wanted to get housework done today, sigh. My back says otherwise.

cosmolinguist

I was trying to find out where the Minnesota Vikings are training in England, because my dad wanted to tell me where but forgot the name. I was trying to speed up an excruciatingly low-information conversation with my parents.

I didn't find the name, but I did read this and laugh.

Ranch dressing, barbecue sauce and certain types of cereals were among the pallets of foods shipped early, along with Gatorade for days.

I miss ranch dressing too. Probably some of the cereals. Do they get Peanut Butter Captain Crunch?! Maybe I need to find out where they're training after all... I don't care about football but if they have any leftover ranch...!

malada

After reviewing the remarks of the head of the All Male Definitely Hetro He Man War Fighting Department and Bar and Grill, I can only conclude he's watched the movie "300" too many times. And probably has been jerking off to the North Korean and Russian propaganda films of their 'fighting fit' army.

Well, BS.

Right now those N. Korean and Russian fighting fit forces are being slaughtered by blue haired lesbians piloting killer drones.

Sure, well trained and physically fit soldiers are definitely needed on the battlefield but as the old saying goes, "Arm chair generals talk tactics, real generals talk logistics." Elan and fighting spirit is great in the trenches but training and supplies tip the balance. In World War II, it didn't matter that the Tiger tank with its experience crew could destroy six Sherman tanks when six brand new Shermans - with full gas tanks - will show up tomorrow. And six more the next day. And the next day. And two of the destroyed Shermans have been repaired and back in action - with full tanks of gas. The Tiger? It's running on empty. In the Battle of the Bulge the German army had to retreat on foot because they ran out of gas. No amount of Elan or 'war fighting spirit' will help you when you're out of ammo and out of gas.

It's teeth and tail, dumbass. Sure, you need fit, well trained and motivated soldiers on the line but you need mechanics and electronic experts and code breakers and truckers and cooks and helicopter pilots (waves to Senator Duckworth) to support the front line troops. And they should be soldiers - not contractors - so if the stuff hits the fan you can hand the cook a rifle and they know how to use it.

Current Mood: cranky

rejectomorph

Waking up in the dark not remembering when I went to bed, letting my mind wander (as though I had any choice in that) and realizing it's lost. Hey, I've lost my mind. That's probably why I'm missing the gray days. It sprinkled Monday and drizzled a while Tuesday, and there might have been some actual rain at some point while I was sleeping. I only got sprinkled on when I went out to the mailbox Tuesday, and that was my sole direct experience of the weather. Everything else has been glimpses through the windows when I happen to look out, which I rarely do. I think about doing it then forget, like everything else... like the Monday dinner which is sitting on the counter waiting to be cooked. Must pay attention, I tell myself, then forget that too.

Despite the chill outdoors, and the Tuesday high of a mere 72, the apartment has not gotten cold. That insulation must be packed with retained heat. It's radiating down into the room right now, and the humidity is making it more unpleasant than it needs to be. October is starting out mild, but will then become balmy, with a couple of weeks with highs in the seventies. If I'm careful, I'm pretty sure I can get through the next couple of weeks without using the furnace, and pretty much positive I'm done with the air conditioner for the year. I might not even need the fan very often. So, it appears certain that my October utility bill will be covered by the climate credit. I'll have a few extra bucks to spend on some luxury item, like acetaminophen (jk.) Or I can bake one of the big potatoes I bought last Friday. It's been months since it was cool enough in here to use the oven. I'm looking forward to my autumnal baked goods. Happy October.

weofodthignen

We shopped. The housemate bought heroic quantities of frozen dinners. I somehow got it all into the freezer in the garage.

anne_d

So today I made a pair of earrings to wear with my Medusa necklace (and without it, of course). They were sorta kinda inspired by a style of Roman earrings called “crotalia”, meaning “rattle” because the pearls rattle together when worn. Materials: Sterling wire, peacock blue freshwater pearls, assorted silver metal beads and findings. I didn’t have headpins in a fine enough gauge to go through the holes in the pearls, and I didn’t want to bother drilling the holes larger. But I did have some 24 gauge half-hard* sterling wire in my hoard. I made a tiny loop at the end of the wire and hammered it to make my own headpins.

* Leftover from my attempts to learn wirewrapping over 40 years ago. Half-hard means it’s not as easy to work as dead soft. On the other hand, I didn’t need to do wrapped loops because the wire is stiff enough to stay put when it’s bent.

microbie

I read three books during my flights to/from Chicago but only one more in the three weeks since. It's tough to sustain any kind of motivation.

These Opulent Days, Jacquie Pham
I'm surprised I gave this four stars on Goodreads; I can't say that I remember much about it now. The story follows four wealthy friends, one of whom is murdered. The novel switches perspectives and time periods constantly, and I do remember thinking that the story would probably be dull (albeit easier to follow) without such trickery. I did enjoy the historical detail about Vietnam in the 1920s, when it was still a French colony. OK, I just changed my rating to three stars and feel much better.

A Deadly Endeavor, Jenny Adams
Brent recently remarked that every piece of entertainment now has to be a franchise. You can't just have a story by itself. You need a universe, complete with prequels, sequels, and spin-offs featuring minor characters in the original. A lot of contemporary genre fictions is the same. This is my preamble to this book, which is the first of a series that absolutely doesn't need to be a series. A plucky, wealthy, modern heroine returns to her hometown of Philadelphia in the 1920s and investigates murders of young women, mostly servants. I admit I was not prepared for the macabre reveal--up until that point the book was about as light-hearted as a serial killer mystery can be.

Kingdom of No Tomorrow, Fabienne Josaphat
This avoided being a standard coming-of-age love story with its setting and characters. The protagonist is a Haitian-American public health student who is recruited to help with a free clinic run by the Black Panthers in 1968. She falls in love with one of the Panthers and moves with him to Chicago to grow their chapter. As many people note on Goodreads, this book is at its best when talking about Panther activities and the US government's reactions and considerably less interesting when focused on the love story.

The Witches of El Paso, Luis Jaramillo
This book has two of the common contemporary fiction hallmarks: the nonlinear chronology and the supernatural. There are three main time periods: the late 1700s, the late 1940s, and (more or less) modern times. There was some really lovely writing, and I was impressed that a man chose to write a book featuring almost all women characters. I also liked the elements of folklore and, of course, that the US-Mexico border is one of the motifs.

taz_39

MONDAY

I was up at 4am drinking a canned coffee and waiting for the caffeine to kick in before loading up the car. The very kind front desk person at The Biltmore Greensboro helped me drag my luggage down the stairs (they don't have a ramp,) even though they didn't need to be doing that at 5am. What a gem! It really was a nice hotel, and I'm glad to have experienced staying there :)

I pulled away from the curb in the silence, in the predawn darkness. For some reason I love starting a journey early in the morning, while most of the world is asleep. Certainly part of it is because there's virtually no traffic, and I can get a great head start on a long trip, rocketing down the clear and empty highway.

In fact this turned out to be an excellent travel day: no accidents, no construction delays, and no rush hour traffic for the entire 625 mile/1000 km trip!! Even with stops for gas and the restroom, and a 20-minute SHOPPING stop at Buc-ee's to get souvenirs for Raven and Jameson, I arrived home at 2:30pm. That means the trip took me 9.5 hours, even with stops, which is extremely good time. Between 10-12 hours is far more typical.

If you're curious, the Buc-ee's souvenirs I got included Beaver Nugs for Raven; four different flavors of Overbites for Jameson (I think we'll cut them in half to try them all); a chunk of divinity pecan fudge for Jameson; slabs of cherry maple jerky and lemon pepper jerky for myself and Raven if she cares for it; and pickled quail eggs for me.

Anyway, since I'd made such good time I went home first to dump my luggage in the living room, then backtracked to the airport to return the rental car, THEN Ubered back home using the company account. All of this took nearly two hours in Orlando traffic and I was super tired, but it was only about 4pm. After taking a quick home supplies inventory, I drove to the grocery for some things and got a Pub Sub for dinner. After scarfing the food I did the following:

Washed bedsheets, including mattress topper
Threw away the shower mats because they stink and it's time
Threw away any expired food in the fridge (I DO wish Jameson would do this!! Men!!)
Vacuumed
Wiped the kitchen counters, coffee table, and kitchen table
Dry-Swiffered the tile floor
Unpacked things I'll need for tonight, mostly toiletries
Opened all of the mail that had piled up while I was gone
Checked that our lanai screens have been repaired and sent pics of that to Jameson (I'd made an appointment for them to do it this afternoon while we were both gone)
Chatted with Jameson as he flew to LA, then SanFran, and eventually got on the final flight to Hawaii. He won't land until 2am my time but has promised to text me anyway.
Updated my iPad. It was an OS update, a big one that took a long time.
Took the trash out
Took another home supplies inventory and made a list of things to pick up tomorrow

...and absolutely crashed on the floor with some chocolates and tea to type this post up.

I always do too much, the first day back from tour.
Jameson calls it my "secret cleaning," because I often wait until he's out of the house to do it.
I call it "psycho cleaning" because I HAVE to do it and can't relax until it's done!

Eventually I dragged myself up to finish making the bed, get a shower, and go to sleep in the oddly quiet and empty house. I don't think I've EVER been here without Jameson for more than a day or two. It's WEIRD. But he has to live in the empty quiet house when I'm gone for MONTHS at a time, so I shouldn't complain.

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TUESDAY

I woke up rather excited to get more chores out of the way, haha.

Breakfast and then did the following in order:

Sent travel receipts to company management
Returned the "black" sweater I'd ordered from Amazon
Target shopping for new bath mats, laundry pods, and other household goods

To Firestone to have two of my tires replaced...but they ended up "strongly insisting" that I do all four because not only are they worn, they're also cracked and dry from sitting while I've been on tour. Not surprising but there goes a thousand bucks!!! ARGH.

While waiting for the tires, walked to Lowes and Walmart across the street where I got low-maintenance houseplants for Jameson to enjoy and some seasonal treats: pumpkin vanilla body wash, pumpkin pie pop tarts, candy corn, that sort of thing.
Back home for lunch
Unpacked all the crap I'd bought and repotted one of the plants, which took forever

It occurs to me that you haven't seen much of Jameson's house (I don't say "our" house because my name isn't on the lease.)
Here at least is our dining table. Thought I'd try the succulents as a centerpiece.

Tried the smaller, taller pot as well just to see how it would look.

The thing is, we don't generally EAT at the dining room table, but rather use it for puzzles or LEGOs. Because of that the smaller plant is probably the better choice, at least when it's just Jameson and I. For both photos I'm zoomed out so there's a fisheye effect; the succulent planter is actually pretty large and wouldn't leave much room for serving dishes.

Therefore the succulents were delegated to Jameson's cabinet-against-the-wall for now.

I love the different textures, colors, and variety of plants in here. No idea how they will hold up, but I figure with many kinds of plants in one planter, I can replace them one by one as needed and still have a nice display.

Close-up of the other one which is the same concept but with a bromeliad, philodendron, and two other random low-maintenance plants. Same idea here; if one dies while I'm on tour I can replace it when I get back, and have a rotation going.

After this I rested for an hour, then:

Cleaned both bathrooms
Ate dinner
Checked the mail
Put recycling out
Did meal planning for tomorrow
Drove to Walgreens for Snack Pod candy! Hopefully Raven can help me eat the leftovers from that :p

Throughout the day Jameson had been sending me some pics of his very first time in Hawaii.
He went for a walk and found this imposing totem:

There was a roped-off area of beach where adorable seals were sleeping!

For breakfast he and a friend found a cafe that had loco moco. It looks amazing!!

As the sun was setting, I went to the property fence behind our house and gave my 15-year-old philodendron a funeral. It's still alive but barely (no pictures, give the poor thing some privacy.) I am dumping it in the wildlife area behind our fence where I hope it will revive, as many of our other plants have done after being set free. It deserves a better life. Or a more comfortable death. I will check on it again during the next layoff to see if it's taken root.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday: More cleaning of course, and practicing the bass. This might be the night to try the new Chinese buffet down the street!

Thursday: I hope to have a Splat Day, or "bed rotting" as the kids call it.

cosmolinguist

It occurred to me the other day that since the SAD-fighting daylight lamp I have is pretty old now, it still has a big light bulb in it that gets really hot even in the short amounts of time it's supposed to be used. And I'm not as poor as I used to be so I could get a new one.

As always when I need to purchase anything, I asked V for help because they're very good at this. They suggested I might want to try one of those sunrise alarm clocks too. Which I'd never thought about because I'm not really an alarm kind of person a lot of the time, thanks to sleep-maintenance insomnia. But when they sent me a link to what they found and I saw it does a "sunset" thing where you can have gradually-diminishing light and sounds to put on at bedtime, I thought that might be worth a try. I've had increasing trouble settling down to sleep in recent months, and I don't love the workarounds I've resorted to.

Both arrived today, so I write this with orangey light and nature sounds next to me, and the daylight lamp set up by my desk downstairs waiting for me in the morning. We'll see how they work.

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September 2023

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Reading

Ogham Readings on Saturdays

Book Tour Starting Next Week

A happy Friday off

Actually, let's tallk about MedBeds

D.O.P.-T.

Oops I did it again

Queen Demon Playlist

October Layoff Week 1: Buffet Fun, More Chores (2)

Optimistic and Organisational October & Project 92 days

D.O.P.-T.

Sunrise, sunset

stressed and hurt but making progress.

Gatorade for days

War Fighting!

52/223-224: See You, September (Maybe)

D.O.P.-T.

Earrings!

September reading

October Layoff Week 1: Travel and "Psycho Cleaning" (1)

Little suns

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September 2023

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