shadowkat: (Default)
shadowkat ([personal profile] shadowkat) wrote2025-06-24 08:31 pm
Entry tags:

More June Questions...and memage

The heat (it was 101 degrees today, and tonight has not dipped past 95 degrees with a high barometric pressure, and moderate air quality) - resulted in a sick nauseous headache by the time I got home, which is still lurking in the background. I felt dizzy, wiped out and off. Most likely the hangers on from my bout with COVID last week.

So instead of walking the fifteen to twenty blocks to the voting place, which is about a twenty minute walk in the heat, not helped by my sciatic nerve, I copped out. I feel really bad about it. But it is what it is. It's not like I have anyone I really want to vote for anyhow. I really did not like any of the people running. I'd landed on one, but I wasn't happy with the choice. I'll vote in the actual election - possibly by mail. This has taught me to try mail in voting from now on.

Heat and menopausal bodies are not mixy things. I also think my blood pressure was a bit off. I took the additional meds, it's seems to have leveled off a little now.

21. What is your favourite salad dressing?

Right now, it's usually lemon juice. I rarely use it. But if I do use it - I live olive oil and vingear, or Cesar Salad Dressing (with anchovies flavoring it).

22. Have you owned an aquarium or had a pond in your garden/backyard?

Don't have a backyard. So no on the pond. Parents had a lagoon for a bit.
And brother has a pond in his backyard, but not sure that counts? I owned an aquarium when I was a child - but not since then, too high maintenance.

23. Where is your favourite holiday destination – have you been more than once?


Don't really have one? I grew up with the view that you go somewhere different every year. I go to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina (it's a nice island off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, that has sandy beaches, and is large enough to have a town, etc. It's not a small island.) But I only go to visit my mother, previously my parents, whom I'm exceedingly close to.

24. In 1911 French couturier Paul Poiret held his infamous 'The 1002nd Night' costume ball to launch his “Parfums de Rosine", the first signature scent linked to a design house. Have you a favourite scent?

I am allergic to most perfumes, unfortunately. They give me headaches. But I do like Lavender - doesn't bother me. (Note - most people with scent allergies or who are sensitive to perfume, have no problems with lavender for some reason or other). I also like lemon or citrus, euclyaptus, and pine.

Cinnamon now makes me sneeze. And Vanilla can make me queasy at times, weirdly.

I adore the scent of coffee.

***

More on what comforts me?

Songs or musicians that I find comforting?

* Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLachlan, The Magnetic Stripes, Sand Sheff, Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Sondheim's Into the Woods, The Stones, David Bowie, Janis Ian, Suzanne Vega, Joan Jett and the Runaways/ also that other band - basically anything with Joan Jett, Brenda Carlyle, the Indigo Girls,
and Pink Floyd

Mostly Folk and Classic Rock, also classical music - anything by Yo Yo Ma, or John Williams movie themes. I have a fondness for Gershwin and Jazz. Jazz reminds me of my Dad, who adored it, that and Frank Sinatra.

**

Smartbitches tempted me to buy another couple of books on Kindle, both were a $1.99. Went to get the first one, Hench, only to discover I'd already purchased it a year ago and forgotten about it. At least Amazon will inform me, other places aren't as considerate.

***

A picture of the fountain outside my workplace. It's finally working. No, no one was climbing into it. They can't without hurting the flowers. It's not a swimming fountain.




People were threatening to open up fire hydrants today - which is illegal. The city parks and the city has fountains folks can play in.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
elainegrey ([personal profile] elainegrey) wrote2025-06-24 05:49 pm
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(chapter 4, us)

So, Chapter 3 isn't over. We reset the days since last trip to emergency room/emergency vet last night with Christine. I am very glad we got her there and that the intervenous anti-nausea, antibiotics, and fluids has her looking much better. I swear she was looking a little yellow around the eyes last night and she looks much better now. The long painful wait in the emergency room was no fun, and i feel it was just in time when she got seen. Her blood pressure was falling.

Not going into all the details as they belong to Christine, but sharing what i feel is part of my details.

She has since had many tests, and news before 8 am that they would admit her. I was there mid morning through after lunch, advocating for her regular meds and reading/researching the test results when we got them. No doctor showed. Since she still tests positive for COVID she's under COVID precautions and will be for ten days -- but please let her be home well before that. Her sister is there now and i go back tonight with CPAP and other supplies.  [Yay, a doctor's consult, with me included by phone. They think just the infection but given how bad things were last night want to make sure she is well recovered with more fluids and more antibiotics.]

In Monday's therapy i discussed basically being kinda flat lined, kinda breaking into tears all the time.  -- -- This was before Christine really took a bad turn. Sunday evening she wasn't well and it was a bad night. Monday morning i drove her to  an appointment to see a nurse practitioner for the doctor she trusts, gotten antibiotics and were hoping that we were on a course to solve the immediate issues and a plan to address some other longer running issues - that i hadn't known about. -- -- I finally acknowledged i need to recover from All This.

Since 24 February -- four months ago -- we've been to the emergency room/vet  -- six times now.  I mean,  since Jan 20 it hasn't been easy. And between February 24 and April 18, 53 days, nothing dramatic inside our home happened (oh, but the US and administration's injustices, including the attacks on transpersons and the resounding political silence). Most of that time i was recovering from the platelet drop, and was just feeling better and stronger on April 12. So really the intense time has been from April 18 to now: five emergencies (two resulting in our loss of Luigi and Edward) in less than ten weeks. Plus B--'s death, convalescence for Carrie.

I have grown to believe that if you have an stressful work time of x weeks or months, it takes about 2x weeks to recover.

20 weeks from today is November 11. Maybe Chapter 4 begins then.

asakiyume: (shaft of light)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2025-06-24 07:22 am

Rhapsody to humid heat

Waking up this morning was like waking up in the Amazon, and I AM HERE FOR THIS. Out my back window, a northeastern jungle, so many shades of green, dappled sun, morning mist. An aural bouquet of birdsong and small critter sounds. Right now there's a scent of wood smoke.

I love the way the medium of humid air makes you intimate with every other thing. The way everything is right on your skin and in your lungs. The glass of water sweats, you sweat. Time dissolves, sound travels nonlinearly, odors are more vivid. I love the lassitude, the exhaustion.
mellowtigger: (biohazard)
mellowtigger ([personal profile] mellowtigger) wrote2025-06-23 09:09 pm
Entry tags:

remember SARS-CoV-2?

I haven't written much about SARS-CoV-2 this year. It's still out there, despite the television news not really mentioning much of anything any more. Today, I wanted to share some tidbits that are interesting or worrying, while simultaneously avoiding my Doom Bingo 2025 topics. I'm also avoiding a lot of old 2022 studies that showed persistent infection in the brain and various kinds of physical damage in the brain after infection. I tried to keep these links a lot more "fresh" and recent.

Click to see a little of the bad news in no particular order...

The good news? There is some.

Click to read the proverbial silver lining...

  • This pre-print makes some interesting claims. Researchers found damage to the brainstem and cerebellum that might explain a variety of Long Covid symptoms. Notably, "While viral genetic material was detectable, infected neurons were not observed." This observation gives hope that we can become infected and sometimes not develop persistence within the brain. It might be imported from other areas of the body instead, maybe tissue without immune privilege, so the ongoing infection could eventually be cured. Within the downloaded PDF of the full article, they suggest that the virus damages the immune system, resulting in auto-immune problems that affect these outcomes in the brain, although these details are well above my level of understanding.
    "Brainstem Reduction and Deformation in the 4th Ventricle Cerebellar Peduncles in Long COVID Patients: Insights into Neuroinflammatory Sequelae and “Broken Bridge Syndrome”

  • This study offers another kind of hope. "Here we demonstrate extensive endothelial cell (EC) death in the microvasculature of COVID-19 organs. Notably, EC death was not associated with fibrin formation or platelet deposition, but was linked to microvascular red blood cell (RBC) haemolysis." As I interpret it, red blood cells are "jumping on a live grenade" to save you from circulatory system damage, and these kinds of clots might respond to new drugs that current blood thinning drugs don't help. That's good news too, despite the macabre horror of it.
    "Ischaemic endothelial necroptosis induces haemolysis and COVID-19 angiopathy"

  • This study notes that "SARS-CoV-2 infection is known to cause changes in the T cell compartment, including differences in expression of receptors associated with exhaustion. While immune responses to infection and vaccination are not equivalent, in the eyes of the public, this concern of immune exhaustion after infection can carry over to vaccination." They found that repeat vaccination does not lead to T-cell exhaustion. That finding is good news. I've mentioned before that spike protein (whether virus or vaccine) carries its own dangers, but at least immune system reduction doesn't seem to result from vaccination, just infection.
    "No evidence of immune exhaustion after repeated SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in vulnerable and healthy populations"

Sorry, that's a lot of information, even after I deleted half a dozen articles that I included on the first draft. :(

I still mask around other people. No matter how many times you've had COVID, it's better not to get it even one more time. Stay safe out there.

twoeleven: Hans Zarkov from Flash Gordon (Default)
twoeleven ([personal profile] twoeleven) wrote2025-06-23 07:36 pm

paris olympics: athletics, day 1

we had excellent seats for the first day of track and field. the finish line for all the races is just off to my left, and we had a great view of the first turn. there were lots of races. the middle of the field is set up for flinging javelins, so we had a good view of the throws. but we had a lousy view of the long jump. the pits for that are the tan rectangles in the purple area to the right of the track.

6 August Seats

the stadium is the stade de france, in st. denis, an inner northern suburb of paris. it's usually for playing what most people call football. it's the largest stadium in france.

picturiffic )
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rebeccmeister ([personal profile] rebeccmeister) wrote2025-06-23 05:58 pm
Entry tags:

2 books read [books]

The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking, by Gaku Homma. This is a cookbook, and thus contains recipes, but it also contains a lot of other stories and information about country life in Japan and what it has been like for the author to emigrate to the United States and open up a dojo and restaurant in Denver, Colorado. I really appreciated learning about traditional food preservation and cooking methods. I'm not sure whether I'll cook much from this book, but you never know. One of the things I appreciated about it the most was getting a better understanding of the basic staple ingredients for this type of cooking. It is not as intimidating a list as for other cuisines. Kind of a niche topic, but I appreciated it.

James, by Percival Everitt. This came recommended by a friend who reads a wide range of things. I appreciated it for the project it undertakes, but if someone were to ask, I'd recommend Chain Gang All-Stars first, even though many people might find it to be a more challenging book to read.

Before I set out on the train for the Erie Canal bike touring adventure, I purchased and downloaded several books onto my ereader, so I'll probably continue working my way through that eclectic set for now.
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
Sonia Connolly ([personal profile] sonia) wrote2025-06-22 09:20 pm
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Letting down my guard, or not

I've been reading my own book Embodying Hope as preparation for trying to get it out in the world again. Turns out there's a lot of good stuff in there. And a few things I might want to change. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make a revised edition. Small, manageable steps!

Find Calm: Practice Rest and Regulation talks about low tone dorsal vagal rest, which is a fancy way of saying a very old nervous system response that's similar to freeze, but which happens when we feel relationally safe enough to completely let down our guard. It's the response that leads a child to melt into the arms of a trusted adult.

I've been thinking about that in relation to the bodywork series I just finished. I felt safe enough with the practitioner to continue going, but not emotionally safe enough to fully let down my guard. I would get sleepy during the sessions, but I don't know if that was this rest and relaxation response, or just dissociation. It's hard to know when to push through something uncomfortable to get the benefit from it, and when to quit because it's not a good enough fit.
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gremdark ([personal profile] gremdark) wrote2025-06-22 09:41 pm

Battleship Exchange 2025: Specific Likes

(In Progress)

Hi there! If you're reading this, you're probably a Battleship creator looking for some more information before filling one of my prompts. I salute you! Thanks for creating for me.

Other than my DNWs, feel free to disregard any and all information in this post. If you've written something you're excited about, I will be happy to receive it even if I'm not familiar with the fandom. Unrequested tags that don't violate a DNW and seem in line with what I'd like are 100% fine!

My Absolute Favorite Battleship Tags:

Art Likes )
On Podfics )

General Likes )
Sexual Likes )
List of Favorite Fandoms )

Fandom-Specific Likes:

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones

I love this series most for the way it engages with complex familial dynamics. My favorite characters are Christopher, Conrad, Millie, Cat, and Tacroy, roughly in that order.
Christopher/Conrad/Millie is a beautiful ship, one that lends itself well to epistolary. I'd love them as adults or something from their wild teenage years. Sex between any pair of them or all three would be wonderful.
I'd love to read adult imaginings of Cat, Janet, Roger, and Julia. Maybe Cat's leaning on them as he adjusts to being Chrestomanci. Roger/Joe, or queer interpretations of Roger in general, would be lovely.
I'd also like explorations of Cat and Gwendolyn's dynamic, whether or not she actually appears in the fic. Cat interacting with Mrs. Sharp as he grows up would be fun too.
I LOVE Tacroy and would enjoy fic that explores how it feels to be separate from one's soul. Tacroy/Flavian would delight me.

DC Animated Universe
Any character, dynamic, or ship I list in the Young Justice section applies here, and vice versa.
**I will devour any and all Superbat identity porn you put in front of me. Any continuity, any degree of enemies, friends, boyfriends, or lovers.**
My other favorite DC characters are Batwoman (Kate Kane), Batgirl/Oracle (Barbara Gordon), Dick Grayson, Barry Allen, Wally West, Martian Manhunter (and his various associates), John Stewart, and Roy Harper.
My pet rarepair is Booster Gold/Guy Gardner.
I enjoy complex mentor/mentee dynamics, with or without sex or romance.
I'm not particularly a fan of the "Batfamily" pool of tropes.

Discworld
My greatest soft spot is for the Vimes/Vetinari dynamic (Sybil and Drumknott being, of course, very relevant) but I'm enthusiastic about all the characters in this series. Who do you love? Show me why.


Dumbing of Age (Webcomic)
Dungeon Meshi
Elementary
El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)
Father Brown
Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Leverage
Merlin
Miraculous Ladybug
October Daye - Seanan McGuire
The Once and Future King - T. H. White
Paint Your Wagon
White Collar
Widdershins (Webcomic)



Young Justice
Aqualad/Clone Roy Harper. Birdflash. Red Tornado. Dick Grayson. Miss Martian. Artemis. Transfem readings of Miss Martian. Dick?Artemis, esp. Blue Beetle/Impulse if they date and/or hook up pre identity reveal.
The Will, Artemis, Jade, Lian, and Wally family.

Kitty Noir/Scarabella. DJWIFI. Identity porn.


Battleship Tag DNWs:


Other DNWs )
shadowkat: (Default)
shadowkat ([personal profile] shadowkat) wrote2025-06-22 07:52 pm
Entry tags:

Sigh...Finally Some Good News

[Hopefully to drag me out of my apathy, if not the brain fog.]

The Good News Report....and as always, good news is often in the eye of the beholder.

1.Appeals Court blocks Louisiana law forcing Ten Commandments displays in classrooms. Separation of church and state is the law of the land. Shoving Christianity in kids' faces through their public schools is still, for now, illegal.

NBC News

Honestly, it's not as if the idiotic Republicans are following the commandments anyhow, why are they insisting on wasting money fighting for them to be taught in public schools?

2. A fundraiser organized to protest Colorado’s 568-day backlog for processing sexual assault forensic exams resulted in a $6,000 award to the state this week to urge faster action.

Denver Post

3. Washington D.C. residents honor Juneteenth with a Jubilee and Freedom Walk on the very path where enslaved people once escaped to freedom.

Washington Post

4.Barrington, Rhode Island : Members of the Town Council vote unanimously to adopt a resolution declaring it a sanctuary town for transgender people and all members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community.

East Bay Rhode Island

5.New York, NY: More than 75% of the city’s municipal vehicles—about 21,500—are now green (hybrid, electric, or running on renewable biofuel).

https://gothamist.com/news/some-positive-climate-news-for-once-nycs-vehicle-fleet-is-75-green

6.Communities in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Charlotte, San Diego, Boston, Houston, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Worcester, MA, and other cities show up publicly in support of their neighbors facing unjust ICE raids, detainment, and deportation.

7.Four top lawyers leave the Paul Weiss law firm to start their own firm in protest of its leader’s deals to dodge an executive order that would have limited its business.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/more-partners-leave-paul-weiss-join-new-law-firm-2025-06-09/

8.Dementia prevalence among older adults was significantly lower among individuals born more recently (1944-1948) compared to those born earlier (1919-1923), with a more pronounced decline in women, a new study conducted in the US, Europe, and England showed. - SOURCE: This study was led by Xiaoxue Dou, Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2834750#google_vignette

9.Dan Mancina, a blind skateboarder, creates the world’s first adaptive skatepark in Detroit, Michigan.

https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/adaptive-skatepark-dan-mancina

10.The EU will provide emergency funds to pro-democracy media outlet Radio Free Europe after the U.S. president cut its grants.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/05/20/eu-to-provide-55mln-in-emergency-funds-to-help-keep-radio-free-europe-afloat

the rest of the 49 )

Good night and Good Luck, and in case you didn't find anything good enough to make you smile above?

Here's a picture of some flowers on my walk today to the grocery store.

rebeccmeister: (Default)
rebeccmeister ([personal profile] rebeccmeister) wrote2025-06-22 06:30 pm
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Weekend cooking bender [food]

Saturday we had friends over for a thank-you dinner for cat-sitting for us. I made two kinds of curry out of 660 Curries, an eggplant dish that is a total star recipe, with toasted peanuts, sesame seeds, white poppy seeds, coconut, and more. The second dish was a paneer curry with a sauce made from red peppers and cashews. LOVE that cookbook.

For dessert, I pulled two aged bags of raspberries out of the freezer, thawed them, and whirred them in the food processor with 1/2 C of water. Then I mixed in ~ 3/4 C simple syrup made from 1 C sugar, 1 C water, heated up. I pushed the slurry through a sieve, stuck it in the fridge, and then we had fun passing around the ice cream maker. DAMN raspberry sorbet is amazing.

Today was the usual pancakes for breakfast, a batch of muesli, some black beans for backup meals later in the week, roasting some broccoli, then using that plus some other fridge ingredients to assemble some pasta bakes.

I feel fortunate that I can afford to eat well, both with regards to the cost of food and with regards to time in which to cook it.

It's going to be another busy research week, so now it's time to buckle up.
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andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-06-22 06:37 am
Entry tags:

Photo cross-post


First climbing experience, and after an hour of trying different walls Sophia made it to the top!
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

sistawendy: me in the Mercury's alley with the wind catching my hair (smoldering windblown Merc alley)
sistawendy ([personal profile] sistawendy) wrote2025-06-21 07:21 pm
Entry tags:

Nun does a variety of things until she's all worn out.

As promised I went to the monthly women's capital-L Leather munch, complete with bootblacks, at C.C. Attle's. TL;DR: A+ would munch with those ladies women people again!

I'd never set foot in CC's before, which isn't as odd as it sounds because I was under the impression that it was very much a men's space. And it used to be, but times change, and what was the Leather bar — the Cuff — got taken over by someone with a corporate mindset who decided to give yet another home to "gay bros" as Dancer described them. CC's is dark and loud, but it's hella queer. There's mirror junk hanging from the ceiling, which serves the same function as Pony's mummer junk: putting the hets on notice. They also let the Leather women reserve tables, set up the bootblacks' chairs, and pimp their night on the video. And their beer selection is acceptable. So CC's management gets a thumb up from me.

I must say, the Leather munch seems to be flirtier and less popular with n00bs than the women's munch. It may be my preferred munch from now on. The organizers, B & A from the women's munch, weren't the only people I knew there. There was lovely young Squirt, whom I met a few years ago at another event. There was also H, whom I met at Folsom in '17.

H deserves her own paragraph because she looms large in my memory for giving me the most intense damn scene of my life. I knew she'd moved (back?) into the area last year at the latest, but I hadn't seen her out & about until last night. I managed not to squee audibly, but only just. H says she just doesn't get out as much as she used to to public events. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's a bummer for yours truly. And of course she has an unfairly attractive partner, whom I think I met all those years ago.

I got to tell Folsom stories to the bootblacks. The boots I was wearing are now shiiiny. Happiness.

I got invited to a play party tonight, but it's in Tukwila, which is $$$ to get to without a car. Le sigh, because I have every confidence it'll be good.

I was a good girl and left after only a couple of hours at the munch. And why? Because I'd already promised Dancer I'd help her move stuff to storage. I misrecorded a hair appointment this afternoon and thereby deprived her of about an hour, which only compounded the chaos that others introduced. We did get the stuff mostly moved by the time Dancer dropped me off at my stylist's, only a few minutes late, in a U-Haul van*.

I'd proposed to Funny Lady that we meet up in Georgetown for their Pride thing, but I'm too beat. Fortunately, so is she, having just returned from visiting family back east.



*My stylist realized before I did that I was a lesbian in a U-Haul. It is to laugh.
shadowkat: (Default)
shadowkat ([personal profile] shadowkat) wrote2025-06-21 08:57 pm

(no subject)

1. Finished watching Nonnas on Netflix. It's the true story of a man who decides to open a restaurant in Staten Island featuring the cooking of grandmothers, after his mother dies. Stars Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Braco, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, and Brenda Vaccaro, along with Linda Cappelina (who was in ER and Freaks & Geeks).

I looked it up? It's actually in Staten Island. Open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and features Nonnas of the World - basically grandmothers from around the world come and cook there. It's located on Hyatt Street in the historic district, not far from the Staten Island Ferry - which is free now.

Oh, this is tempting. You need to get reservations in advance, and have a two hour seating. Also, cash only or Vemo. (They don't appear to want to pay the credit card fees.)

Also, they have gluten-free items (clearly a real Italian establishment, you can always tell by the gluten free items on the menu).

It's called Enoteca Maria.

2. The Senate Parliamentarian Cuts Out Chunks of the Big Beautiful Ugly Bill because they violate the Byrd Rule.
Bill had chunks cut out of it due to the fact they violate the Byrd Rule of Law )

3. Apparently Pope Leo has been sending folks to help stop ICE raids.

Bishop Michael Pham - the first U.S. appointment by Pope Leo - showed up at immigration court along with other religious leaders, in solidarity with immigrants going through the legal process, but where ICE has been arresting people. No ICE arrests were made. San Diego, California.

Go HERE
asakiyume: The Red Detachment of Women (1961, Xie Jin) (emancipating collectively)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2025-06-21 06:44 pm

a wonderful day

Today was wonderful!

It started out with meeting a young woman in a wheelchair, birdwatching by a small pond with cattails.

"I think I saw an American bittern," she said.

Later I brought some catalpa blossoms to a friend, and they gave me an iced, homemade-banana-syrup-and-oat-milk latte to take with me on my errands. It was a hot day and the drink was perfect!



My errands included buying a sickle to cut this long grass.



Not now: now I want to let it alone, as the fireflies and butterflies and bees enjoy it (and also I enjoy it). But later, in the fall, when the time comes to cut it. A lawn mower does a horrible, chewy job, and the shears I have are blunt.** So I want to try a sickle. I saw people cutting grass with sickles in Timor-Leste. Here is my sickle. I've named her Kusakari (grass cutter).



Now, as it happens, I also have a lump hammer, which the healing angel named Petra, and which is great for smashing open hickory nuts or acorns. Here she is, posing with some of last year's hickory nuts.



Well ... if we introduce.... Petra to Kusakari.... OMG!



Then on the way home from my errands, I was driving along a stretch of road that's marked "Turtle Crossing." Usually this is a depressing stretch of road because in spite of the sign, what I mainly see are crushed turtles -_-

But today I saw a live one, craning its neck, preparing to risk its life to get across the road. So I pulled over, went back, picked it up, and carried it across. When I set it down, it trundled on down to the water that was waiting for it.

ONE TURTLE LIFE SAVED. Yaaay!

And now I'm going to eat strawberries and whipped cream. PERFECT DAY.

**Yes, I could sharpen them. In fact I have sharpened them in the past and probably will in the future... but ... sickle!

ETA: The sickle's name should be KusaKARI, not KusaKIRI--corrected that now.
rebeccmeister: (Default)
rebeccmeister ([personal profile] rebeccmeister) wrote2025-06-21 03:59 pm
Entry tags:

Slowly making progress on boathouse projects [rowing, projects]

Today I decided to go back to the boathouse after rowing and coffee, to continue work on various boathouse projects for a couple hours.

First, I rehung the boat light charging station on L-hooks, and while I was at it, hung up a second shoe holder to serve as a walkie talkie charging station. I was able to get everything powered up thanks to having obtained some 8-foot extension cords at the hardware store yesterday.

I also moved all of the supplies for keeping megaphones and coxboxes charged up, onto a temporary portable step unit.

Updated charging area

This now gets all of the rowing electronics into one place inside the boathouse, instead of having everything scattered in different locations. It also gets all the electronics to a spot where they can be recharged regularly.

Once that was done, I turned my attention to our first aid cart. During this transition, it, along with some of our electronics, has been living inside a shipping container.

Something about the first aid cart has been bothering me for years. The original person who assembled it, assembled the wheels incorrectly. See if you can tell what I mean from the photo below. Up until now I really haven't been in a position to do anything about the problem. Vexing. Especially when you consider that people periodically want to wheel the cart to new locations during our special events.

Craftsman cart with wheels incorrectly installed

I kind of feel like there isn't a WORSE way to assemble the wheels!

At one point, the wheels were so poorly fastened that one of the wheels came off entirely. So when I took things apart to swap the wheels to the correct positions, I encountered multiple sizes of nuts and bolts. But at least now the cart will actually roll properly, and with any luck no one will have to tilt this beast on its back to fix the wheels again anytime soon!

Along with the wheel problem, there has been some sort of long-term lingering issue with one of the bottom drawers, where it refused to stay completely closed. Super annoying. When trying to work on the wheels, I ascertained that I would need to remove the bottom drawers to access the wheel nuts from inside the cart. That eventually led me to watch an internet video about how to remove this type of drawer from this type of cart (and it turns out there are two different overall types of cart/drawer; initial hits were for the other type. Complicated!).

The internet video I eventually found helped me to understand that one of the plastic drawer removal latches had snapped off, making it extra difficult to remove the drawer.

A couple extra minutes with a small screwdriver and a bunch of swearing did the trick.

Intact latch:
Intact Craftsman drawer latch

Snapped-off latch:
Broken Craftsman drawer latch

In the end, I did not reinstall this "trouble drawer," as that seemed unwise.

Once the wheels were fixed, I relocated the cart to a new, more prominent spot inside the boathouse:

First aid cart repositioned

It just seems to me that having a first aid cart in a prominent, accessible location is a good idea.

I was so pleased to find that the cart fit exceptionally well into the space where I wanted to put it. The only issue was that the ground was far from level in that location. So I used a chunk of an old wooden platform that used to be underneath our oars, to provide a stable surface for the cart to rest on.

Totally satisfying projects!

Now I can turn my attention to the next boathouse project, constructing a long-term charging station for the coxboxes and megaphones.
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andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-06-21 12:29 pm
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Photo cross-post


Sophia is watching the boys in the street have a water fight.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

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shadowkat ([personal profile] shadowkat) wrote2025-06-21 11:15 am

Updates...

1. Feeling much better - the sickness is gone, finally. No cough, no runny nose. Still feel a bit wiped, but for the first time in a week - I ate something other than chicken vegetable soup or chicken broth.
photo of chicken soup )
As you can see it was homemade. The store bought variety has things like yeast, corn starch, etc in it.

Although I did buy the broth - I've never the energy or time to make my own broth.

Had eggs this morning and a gluten free english muffin. It should sustain me until noon. I'm hoping to vote in the primary this mayoral primary this weekend.

2. Wales apologized. I explained my issues regarding what she said about COVID, by laying out my experience with it and how it had affected my life, and she apologized and thanked me for taking the time to explain.

I think people forget that everyone's body is different, and illnesses affect all of us differently.

3. Even though our mass media is attempting to downplay the number of people who protested during No Kings Day to roughly 5-6 million as opposed to 12-13 million as Alt National Parks (the coalition of 5051) stated, I'm going with Alt National Parks number for the following reasons:
Read more... )

4. Buffy Rewatch...S3 so far has no duds, I've not skipped or groaned through an episode.

And damn, by episode 7, I really wish someone would kill off Xander. ugh Xander )

Oh, I've been paying attention to the credits here and there, and discovered something interesting? There are about five to six producers who are not writers. Also various people involved who don't write for the show and are editors. The credits are lengthy. Sandy Gallin and Gail Berman produced, along with the Kuzuies, Gareth, and David Solomon, and then Whedon and Greenwalt as show-runners. This was in S3. David Solomon was a director - not really a writer. And did a lot of the second unit directing for the series. Gallin was with Sand Dollar - which is Dolly Parton's production outfit. Gail Berman was with Fox and the WB.

If you think Buffy was just a Whedon show? You aren't paying attention to the credits. It really wasn't just Whedon's or Mutant Enemy's. Also ME and Whedon didn't own the rights to it. Fox, the Kazuis and Dolly Parton did.
Whedon had to ask their permission to continue with it. Fox's rights are now Disney's, Disney bought all of Fox's entertainment properties.

Also, here's the writing process as of 2003, per Jane Espenson, who was in the writer's room at the time:
the Writing Process by Jane Espenson )

Note that was in 2003. In 1997-1999, the head writers were David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon, and the studio and network had more of a say and Berman was more involved. When the show jumped over to UPN, Fox still had a say (that's the studio), but the network didn't care. So, what Espenson is leaving out - is the network and studio notes, which may or may not have existed on Whedon shows. The writing team was continuously changing, with various writers jumping from one Whedon Show to another one.

Carpenter made it clear during a con - that there's no reason to feel guilty loving Buffy, because of Whedon, since the show was a collaboration and Whedon's involvement, while heavy at times was by far not the main ingredient or the main oversight. It's not a novel, and it's not a series like Andor that is written and directed by one auteur. It's also not like Doctor Who, where the vast majority of episodes are written by one person and to a large part even directed by them.

This is an American Broadcast Television Series - they have about 400 people involved, we have editors, directors, guest directors, stunt coordinators, etc. To say Whedon had limited control over the proceedings, is a gross understatement. No one was purely in control over it.

Actually in my re-watch, I can now tell when they are using stunt doubles.