Soup Season

Oct. 21st, 2025 10:27 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

I have, today, made my first Soup of the autumn: carrot and leek and celery and a couple of potatoes for good measure (and I then added frozen peas to my portion, because I like them cold and not at all cooked and definitely not reheated repeatedly over the course of a week). Bread and cheese, fruit to follow. I didn't manage Monday Morning Soup Ritual this week, as you can tell from the fact that it's Tuesday, but. Soup.

Some other bits and pieces: I have reached the stage of Squash Week where I have more recipes I want to make than I have squash with which to make them (... and one spaghetti squash) (for which I have at least some open EatYourBooks tabs). I hit refresh in my Oxfam tab aaaaaand the sale has cycled around to 30% off 3+ books. I have a chilli order ready to go as soon as my new debit card arrives OR I get over myself and see whether the credit card is actually behaving. There is a batch of onions caramelising in the Instant Pot. The current pain book is abruptly unexpectedly absorbing -- it's much more Sociology Of Pain than I'd quite been expecting, but it's potentially building to making at least some of the argument I want to from a refreshingly different angle to everything else I've come across in my background reading so far, and in the meantime in spite of my frustrations with it it's prompting lots of Useful Thoughts.

And I am wearing my Seasonal Leggings (courtesy of Mardy Bum, findable primarily on Facebook, or Instagram for a bit of an idea) and my Extremely Enthusiastic Slippers, like so. Read more... )

Long rant, can't sleep

Oct. 21st, 2025 11:19 am
fayanora: lil girl knife (lil girl knife)
[personal profile] fayanora
Concerning the continuing government shutdown, I am glad to see that the Democrats are finally growing a fucking spine about something for once, but at the same time I'm still pissed because where was this fucking spine when the tea party assholes started making shit difficult for Obama? We are in the fascist uprising that we are in currently because the Republicans started going well and truly insane at that time and blocked at least one of Obama's choices for Supreme Court justices. I don't remember if there were more than that, but that should have been the point at which the Democrats grew a spine and said, "No! He is getting this person for a Supreme Court justice because that is how this shit works, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourselves!"

Why is it, almost a year into this fascist uprising, that the Democrats are only just now growing a spine?

Long rant under cut )

Fuck the GOP

Oct. 21st, 2025 08:34 am
fayanora: FB avatar NO (FB avatar NO)
[personal profile] fayanora
Trump's big ugly bill finally starts fucking us over. Starting November 1st of this year, if you want SNAP benefits, you'll have to work for them. Luckily, the wording and the little table provided seem to exempt people who have been officially declared disabled. (Assuming I've read it correctly.) Of course that doesn't help people who are disabled but not officially declared so yet, and of course they made it a lot harder to do much of anything regarding the Social Security Administration (earlier in the year), as if that was necessary.1

Also, it looks like elderly people who are not also disabled will have to work, unless they are pregnant. Though I have no idea what they consider elderly for SNAP.

Fuck the Republicans. Fuck Tronald Dumpsterfire. Fuck the GOP. Assholes, every fucking one of them. Big, hairy, stinky, shit-smeared, syphilis-infected assholes.

Moments before sending this, I got an email from the SSA with a headline reading "Go digital to avoid a trip to your local office during government shutdown" which made me laugh hysterically. IIRC, Elon Musk's interference with the SSA earlier in the year already shut down all the SSA offices and phone numbers, so you already had to do everything online, no government shutdown necessary. I could be misremembering the details, but I distinctly remember there being a huge to-do about it for over a month because they were saying computer-illiterate people were basically fucked because of it.

~

1 = I remember filling out the SSDI forms in 2008 or 2009, and it was so stressful that afterward I had literal tunnel vision the whole way back home, and also I had to drown out environmental sounds with my headphones at higher than usual volume. I was basically in a dissociative fugue state. And I'm a reasonably intelligent and capable person; I can't begin to imagine how much more difficult it is for people less intelligent and/or capable than me, especially people with intellectual deficiencies/disabilities.

Thirty-nine!

Oct. 20th, 2025 11:27 pm
fayanora: ahh! (ahh!)
[personal profile] fayanora
Went canboxing again. Didn't do very well for most of it because I didn't realize until about half an hour in that today was Monday, so all the can boxes likely got emptied earlier in the day. I think most of my finds were found just on the ground, despite it being night, with returnables in garbage containers at a second and yellow glass recycling boxes being in third (I don't know if you're supposed to put returnables in those or not, but people do anyway. Not just glass, either. In fact, some people put garbage in those which is for sure not allowed.) Meaning the actual can boxes placed fourth.

Anyway, I got 39, and now I have two full green bags of returnables, and half of a third, in the house. With the other two I turned in last week or so, I might have five bags credited to my account by the end of the month.

The biggest haul of today was when I found a massive pile of glass bottles in someone's yard, just there on the grass like someone had decided to dump it all there as a "prank." I don't know how many were there, but at least a third of my total haul was that pile. It was a mix of soda pop, root beer, fancy bottled water brands, and some beer bottles. One of the water bottle ones was broken in half, so I used the grabber to move that to the side so I could get the others, then left it. I dunno who put them there, but I sure as fuck wasn't gonna touch a broken bottle to try to find somewhere to dispose of it. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Because the last two trips have yielded mostly glass bottles, and that shit is heavy, I moved some of the lighter things from the first complete bag to the second, half-full bag, then put a bunch of the new glass ones in the first bag, rather than have one entire bag full of just glass bottles. Even doing it that way, both full bags are so fucking heavy that I'm gonna have trouble getting them out when I take them in. My plan is to take one of the full bags in to New Season's Market tomorrow before the food boxes trip, and if I have enough time, come back and take the half bag full of glass bottles in to the Milwaukie recycling place and have those be counted manually so I don't have to deal with trying to deal with filling a third heavy bag all the way. Then the second bag I can take in tomorrow.

Anyway, 39 is $3.90.

it's always DNS and always us-east-1

Oct. 20th, 2025 11:04 pm
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)
[personal profile] jadelennox

and that's why we had to have pasta for dinner.

DW S1 E28

Oct. 20th, 2025 05:28 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
...Ian just did a Vulcan Death Grip. *squints*

(also my dryer has fantastic timing. Dramatic scene ends with "let him die", dryer promptly tootles a cheerful triumphant tune...)

2025 week 42

Oct. 20th, 2025 07:58 pm
larissa: (BSSM ☄ ⌈Usagi ; moonlight rendezvous⌋)
[personal profile] larissa

so far the treatment the hand doc gave me has been wholly ineffective. i am... not thrilled about this, especially as it means i'm still in pain. i have to wait another week to see if it works, but if not, back to the doctor we go...

in other news, i have signed up for [personal profile] nepenthee's ghost of you shrine challenge, which i'm excited about. i haven't actually made any progress on my site yet on account of all the other stuff going on, but i'm hoping to put my head down and work on it soon. this time of year is usually my least productive when it comes to site-making, so it'd be nice to change that for once.

i still haven't really touched ff tactics; at this point i think i might wait until my hands are fully better and i can devote real time to it. other than that, i've continued to do an awful lot of reading. while there's no way i can hit my 2025 book goal of 40 books (i'm only at 17 right now), i've made much more progress than expected given i did no reading until june. silver blessings of a hand injury...

i have no idea what i'm going to do next month for my usual november writing. now that nanowrimo is dead i don't have the compulsion to write 50k (and i don't think it would be advisable this year) but i'd like to make SOME progress... we'll see.

rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
Except very occasionally if I can locate a spot that currently has reception.

So while that's going on, replies to anything may be delayed, but I'm reading when I can and distractions are still very much appreciated.

ETA: may now be fixed, I am deep in spoon debt and would like to be allowed to falldowngoboomnow.

Dear Yuletide author, happy Yuletide!

Oct. 19th, 2025 07:43 pm
jenett: Big and Little Dipper constellations on a blue watercolor background (Default)
[personal profile] jenett
It's been two years since I signed up for Yuletide, but I'm looking forward to it this year!

Thank you so much for writing for me, and I hope you also have a fantastic Yuletide exchange, whatever that looks like for you. I've included both what I particularly like about each canon and a couple of prompt ideas, but I'm up for anything that doesn't hit my DNWs and includes the characters.

General notes, things I love, my do not wants )
All Of Us Murderers - K.J. Charles )
Greta Helsing Series - Vivian Shaw )
England Series - K. J. Charles )
The Odyssey - Homer )

vital functions

Oct. 19th, 2025 11:00 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. No finishes, lots of fragments.

Started: The Old Guard: Opening Fire, Rucka et al. Their faces are WRONG and I don't LIKE it. (Shared Reading Experience.) I also don't like The Smoking, and I really feel the absence of the baklava scene.

In progress: Forgotten Fruits, Stocks, which despite saying I was going to DNF I have continued working my way through, with occasional grumpy squawks; Index, a history of the, Duncan, in very small nibbles; and I'm now a third of the way through Ouch!, Kerr + McRobbie, which is much more sociology than I was expecting when I bought it, having failed at that point to register that one of the authors is a sociologist. A bunch of the neuroanatomy is irritatingly (and unnecessarily! they could have just been less specific!) wrong; we've had a lengthy case study focussing on endometriosis but as yet no indication that they're actually considering the role of ongoing tissue damage. Not ruling out that they'll get there, though.

Dreamwidth catch-up: UP TO SEPTEMBER.

Listening. Cornish waves recording.

Cooking. Ridiculous Textures Of Beetroot from The Modern Vegetarian (good, did like); mildly underwhelmed by Bengali five-spice roasted squash, a totally acceptable meal it was very pleasant to be able to stick in the oven and forget about while I did something else; and stir-fried pumpkin with cashews from Rosa's Thai Café: the Vegetarian Cookbook.

Buttermilk continues to work. Managed some bread. Baked some crabapples and then singularly failed to actually make the ginger-and-lime caramel to coat them in, so this lot probably needs composting and I'll try again next week. Maybe. (Raymond Blanc recipe, from The Lost Orchard, which I much preferred at least so far to Forgotten Fruits.)

Eating. Particularly excited this week by Limonera pears, which are apparently DPO Spanish-cultivated Docteur Jules Guyot! All of the descriptions say "very reminiscent of Williams, flavour not as good unless you get them just right", to which I add that they are sliiiiightly firmer fleshed in a way that I think is an active plus.

I am very much enjoying yoghurt + hazelnuts + a drizzle of quince syrup.

Creating. ... took some photos of some plants?

Growing. MORE SAFFRON. Still very excited by the saffron. Also the chillis. (Home saffron also now definitively coming up, in the trough if not around the fig, but no sign of it intending to flower, alas.)

Cannot tell if the windowsill lemongrass is in fact just dried out or if it's in the Growing Many Roots stage. Grumpily aware that going digging is counterproductive. Pineapple continues pineapple.

Observing. A MUNTJAC. There was, at the plot, A Great Rustling out of the plum tree on the neighbouring plot, and I looked up and thought, for an entire moment, "gosh that's a remarkably large fox with a remarkably short tail", before my brain caught up with the data it was actually being sent. Less than twenty metres away. Think that's the closest one of them's ever been to me (at least that I've noticed)!

Just wanted to say

Oct. 19th, 2025 09:07 am
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
I very very much appreciate everyone who has been leaving me questions and comments here, and if anyone would like to add more they would still be extremely welcome.

some good things

Oct. 18th, 2025 11:36 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Spontaneous(ish) brunch at the localish Gail's, in that it's a thing I have been meaning to do for A While and the weather will shortly be getting cold enough (and likely damp enough) that their outside seating loses its appeal. Underwhelming hot chocolate but I really liked the sesame-cardamom bun -- think Kardemummebullar With Bonus Sesame; I got the last one and it was way better than I was expecting. (Millennial Avocado Toast also tasty.)
  2. Successfully acquired Discount Bread from the supermarket this evening, for the purpose of tomorrow's dinner (a recipe from Salt Fat Acid Heat which will use the cavolo nero from the fridge + some of the Seasonal Squash in a panzanella).
  3. And I was nearly back to baseline on the walk home from same, which is a very welcome development (I have been Lingeringly Ill for the last four weeks).
  4. Successfully read a chapter of The Old Guard comic (on loan from library) on my laptop as a Shared Activity. Consequently we are about a fifth of the way through. I prefer the film.
  5. I think the chilli plant I lost track of the label for might plausibly, finally, be a Trinidad Perfume??? Fingers crossed for it managing to usefully set fruit (and I really do need to bring All the chillis in from the greenhouse...)
  6. I am listening to Cornish waves while I get ready for bed. Is good. <3
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3m3eovdxmwk2z

Okay! This is going to take a while so I had to finish some stuff first, but: Why Da Pope Fucking Up Opus Dei Is A Huge Fucking Deal: a thread

I believe the proposed reforms are currently leaked/not confirmed yet, but this is fascinating.

(ETA: the previous round of Pope-exegesis.)

did some errands

Oct. 17th, 2025 10:53 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Debit card in amended name theoretically on its way to me. Two sets of Objects belonging to Players are now OUT OF MY HOUSE and IN THE HANDS OF ROYAL MAIL. And on the way back up the hill, when I was in less of a hurry, I paused to Observe Some Plants.

Ergo: Some Plants.

grey brick container merging seamlessly with floor, dark green hebe, firey autumnal decorative maple

rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
that would be greatly appreciated.

Currently trying to support a friend in a Very Bad Situation and it's desperately anxiety-inducing and my brain is trying to eat itself, which also makes me less useful as support, which is bad.

So if anyone would like to ask or discuss anything about Prophet or Dark Souls or IWTV or climbing or, you know, any of the somewhat cheering topics I sometimes ramble about, PLEASE DO. "More of a comment than a question" questions also very welcome.

I cannot guarantee replies in a timely or consistent manner (because of the Situation and also the bad state of my brain) but it would be deeply appreciated nonetheless.
fayanora: steph oh shit (steph oh shit)
[personal profile] fayanora
So on a YouTube video by Vsauce, I was introduced to the idea of "constrained poetry." IE, poetry that has certain constraints, like "you can only use words with the letter 'o'. Use that O as much as you want, but no other vowels can be in the poem." Thus, on a whim, I took up the challenge, with the letter O. Here is what I made:

O! Do bloody bombs of old long go,
For holy blood to grossly flow!
Folk of blood, do not long swoon,
Opt to jog, to trot, to croon!
O! Croon so on yon holy chord
Shoots lofty words for world concord!
Knock on rooftops, knock on doors,
From tor tops lofty to yon low moors!
For who so wroth, so forg'd of scorn,
Chops down concord, short of sons forsworn?

~

Hope y'all enjoy it, I spent like two hours on this whim. The last sentence was the hardest, because I was trying to say something along the lines of "who could forswear peace?" and let me tell you, trying to find alternate words for could or would that only have O vowels in them was so damned frustrating. I was even looking into the etymology of the word, and archaic ways to do it, and I was sooo tempted to just use "wood" instead of "would," but I like what I did instead.

Yeah I also added the constraint of "it has to rhyme," too, which added another level of difficulty to it.

Fifty-three

Oct. 16th, 2025 09:10 pm
fayanora: qrcode (Default)
[personal profile] fayanora
Went can-boxing tonight. (Looking for returnables worth money.) Found fifty-three returnables, which is worth $5.30. So my third green bag from before is filled all the way, and a fourth one is half full. Already took in the first two bags a few days ago, so just these two now. Fun thing: these full green bags fit in the new cart with so much room to spare I can easily carry two of them at once. Same thing was barely doable at all with a lot of struggling, using the smaller cart that's broken now.

While I was out, I got a few things at the grocery store, too.

signal boosting: Trope Flip Fest

Oct. 16th, 2025 09:34 am
althea_valara: An icon of Sephiroth saying, "LOL". (Sephiroth LOL)
[personal profile] althea_valara
A friend linked to this tumblr: https://bitimdrake.tumblr.com/post/797526051236577280

It's a list of tropes that have been flipped, so for example instead of the "Only one bed" trope, it's "Too many beds" trope. I'm cackling just reading the flipped tropes, and some of them are giving me Ideas, so I thought I'd boost in case others are looking for some good prompts right now.

Communal Creators wrap-up

Oct. 15th, 2025 07:50 pm
althea_valara: Icon of a closeup of the Detroit Industry fresco. (working)
[personal profile] althea_valara
[community profile] communal_creators is a creative challenge where you pledge to be creative for a certain amount of time daily OR to finish projects of varying size. We have writers, yarn artists, vidders, bakers, someone making music - if it's creative, it counts. The current round ended last night, so here is a recap of what I did during the month.

I had pledged Time Tier II, to average 30 minutes a day of creative activity. I didn't pledge to finish any projects, because most of projects were massive things that I likely couldn't complete in a month's time.

A screenshot of a spreadsheet, showing I averaged over an hour of creative activity daily during Communal Creators.
[Image Description: A screenshot of a spreadsheet, showing I averaged over an hour of creative activity daily during Communal Creators.]

Crochet saw the most activity, with Smallweb coming second. I crocheted on 20 days and touched 5 different projects. The majority of the work went to my Motion Picture Mosaic Cardi, which saw 13 hours of activity.

"Smallweb" was my moniker for work on my Neocities site. This saw a LOT of work in September because [community profile] smallweb September was happening and double-dipping on challenges? {Yes, please.} I did smallweb work on 12 days, with 8 of those being in September for 10 hours. Another 3.5 hours happened in October. This was the area that saw most success, I feel; I finished copying over files from Dreamwidth which meant FFBE season 1 is DONE. I also completed documentation for FFXI:Rise of the Zilart and started Chains of Promathia. I'm quite pleased with the work I did, though I need to get back to it if I ever want to finish the site.

Knitting was my third most active category. I knitted on 13 days, on 5 different projects. Most active was the Central Park Hoodie, which saw ~5 hours 40 minutes.

I am VERY PLEASED that some of my creative activity took the shape of writing, and that's thanks to [community profile] ladiesbingo. I worked on THREE different fics for it! That's so exciting to me! Alas, it quickly fell off, and I didn't touch the writing in the last two weeks. I'd really like to get back to it sometime, but finding time is the problem. Also, I need to do some canon review.

I feel this round of [community profile] communal_creators was a qualified success. I'm very pleased with my output. Thanks to [personal profile] senmut for hosting!

(no subject)

Oct. 15th, 2025 05:25 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Watching Old Who, my brain keeps wanting to treat it as a ttrpg. "No don't split the party!" and "oop I guessed he rolled a 1 there" and "tha what you get for not doing a perception check" and such.

Also seeing the early Daleks makes me think of Daleks telling scary campfire stories. "AND THEN" (waves flashlight under "face") "SUD-DEN-LY THE DOC-TOR." (Other Daleks shriek and flail in terror) ...or Daleks telling baby Daleks "BE-HAVE OR THE DOC-TOR WILL COME". Are there even baby Daleks? Hmmm.

Also ... is it ever explained why everyone speaks English?
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