seasons_of_fandom!

Jun. 12th, 2025 10:00 pm
svgurl: (stock: beach with sun)
[personal profile] svgurl
[community profile] seasons_of_fandom (formerly located at [community profile] lands_of_magic) is an interactive community where you join a team and participate in creative challenges to get points for you and your team. All fandoms are welcome!

There are four teams - Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter! Sign-ups for the new round are open! You can click on the banner below or go HERE.



Let them know I sent you if you sign up! :D

(no subject)

Jun. 12th, 2025 05:22 pm
copracat: myrna loy looking glamorous with text 'glam' (glam myrna)
[personal profile] copracat
Question of the Day
Do you have some table items you only bring out when you entertain guests for dinner?

I picked up this question from [personal profile] dine. I like to use my precious things rather than save them for special. Otherwise why have them? If it has function, let it function. Some things though are too large for one or two person eating. I have a tin-lined copper couscoussier that is not suitable for cooking small amounts. It also looks amazing when you bring it out and put it on the table, gleaming and full of deliciousness.

Other than that there are platters, serving spoons and such that only come out when I'm feeding a few.

Hugo Reading: Novels

Jun. 12th, 2025 12:28 am
ase: Default icon (Default)
[personal profile] ase
Alien Clay (Adrian Tchaikovsky) (2024): Hugo nominee, audiobook read by Ben Allen. Ex-biology professor is shipped off to an extrasolar labor camp for crimes against the totalitarian Mandate, where he is first drafted as a (silently) grumbling lab assistant, then demoted to the Expeditions team that clears alien ruins for the "real" scentists to study. This would be great fun for a biologist, except for the part where the planet's flora think humans look interesting to colonize, ultimately a death sentence. Well, a faster death sentence than being sent to an extrasolar labor camp, anyway.

First person present tense. I forget how tense this makes the read until the story opens, and my reaction is "oh this again" with a little active untensing of the shoulders. Which probably didn't contribute to me taking the novel for what it is, rather than what I wanted it to be.

ExpandRevolution as narrow obsession. )

From this, I think I can conclude I'm not the target audience for Alien Clay.

A Sorceress Comes To Call (T. Kingfisher) (2024): More Hugo reading, again in audiobook, narrated this time by Eliza Foss and Jennifer Pickens. Dual first person PoVs from Cordelia, the daughter of the titular sorceress Evangeline, and Hester, whose brother is ensnared in Evangeline's plot to a.) marry into a little money, b.) marry off Cordelia into real money, c.) arrange the early deaths of both men to gain control of everyone's money.

The novel blurb online invokes the "Goose Girl" fairytale. ExpandIt felt to me that Kingfisher used the fairytale as a springboard. )

...it's fine. If you are up for a spot-on depiction of child abuse, with magic, this is a novel that hits the marks it sets for itself. I'm not that interested in that much uncomplicated abusive parent energy.

The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley) (2024): The Hugo audiobook run continued, now narrated by Katie Leung and George Weightman. The shortest summary would be "RPF, 21st C progatonist / Graham Gore from the Franklin expedition, because time travel," which is about the least helpful explanation of the combination of romantic tropes and 21st century anxieties.

If I namecheck HP with respect to The Incandescent, I have to invoke Kage Baker's Company novels when discussing The Ministry of Time. The unnamed protagonist is hired into a top secret British Ministry which has pulled five individuals out of what the Company series would call event shadows: points in history where the "expats" died, or were believed to have died. The protagonist and her fellow "bridges" are full-tme companions and acclimitization assistants to people pulled out of England and France from the 16th through early 20th centuries, who bring their experiences and expectations with them. The Company series vibes are probably a case of convergent evolution, but there is the protagonist's ill-advised romance with a Victorian adventurer to consider.

ExpandThe execution of the premise is absolutely bonkers, and I will talk about it with massive spoilers. )

I don't know that this is a good novel, but it's the Hugo nominee that I was enjoyed enough to switch from audiobook to ebook, so I could stay up late reading it. (It always feels like I should be in motion - cleaning, or driving, or getting excercise - when I'm listening to an audiobook. Training from listening to audiobooks while in motion, probably.) It's also the novel that I want to turn over in my head, and make my friends read so we can talk about it. So props to Kailene Bradley for hugely entertaining me.

The Hugo nominees so far share the exploration of people treated as things, or ends to means. Cordelia as an extention of Evangeline, or as her tool; the Mandate's literal "work them until they die" labor camp; the Ministry's plans for their time travel expats. That might be one reason I was dragging my feet on Hugo reading this year.

Recent Reading, Not Hugos

Jun. 12th, 2025 12:22 am
ase: Book icon (Books 2)
[personal profile] ase
All thirteen entries (so far) in Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric and Desdemona series, either first reads or rereads (2015 - 2024).

There are excellent "sick on the couch" reading. The stakes are "how will Penric and Des get out of this one?" (spoilers: mix of hiding and chaos), sometimes with added "should we give people second chances?" (spoilers: yes) though occasionally it's "has this person burned up their second, third, etc chances and needs a smiting?" (spoilers: often enough yes, occasionally with Des setting things on fire, sometimes with many witnesses to the smiting). The stories are pretty indulgent, especially once the reader gets to some of Desdemona's meddling (I say vaguely, avoiding spoilers) in "Demon Daughter" and "Penric and the Bandit".

The Incandescent, Emily Tesh (2025): Insta-reaction: WOO MORE TESH. In audiobook, read by Zara Ramm. I was surprised how fast it went, and blame certain big fat space operas who clock in at, let's see, 19 to 21 hours per novel for making me think a 12 hour audiobook is short.

Summary: Saffie Walden, Director of Magic at posh Chetwood Academy, juggles her decidedly unromantic responsibilities as a teacher and administrator, until a magical incursion shakes up the school and Saffie's committment to the persona of Dr. Walden, Teacher, she inhabits with deliberation.

ExpandThoughts cut for spoilers. )

Shelf status

Jun. 11th, 2025 08:32 pm
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
Three shelves (10' length, more or less) have been assembled, put up on the north wall, and filled to great effect. This emptied 1 entire Billy (with slight double stacking). We therefore need bookends.

The empty Billy is now in the living room, with the top few shelves embookinated and various plastic craft-adjacent boxes on the lower shelves. This is making a significant dent in the chaos by my desk.

The shorter bookshelf is currently at the end of the hall, for lack of a better place to put it. I expect that if it stays there long, I will start racking up another set of incredible bruises, and I still don't know where the one on my right arm CAME from. (I remember that I walked into some corner on my sleepy and unstable way to bed and then went "well, THAT'll leave a mark!" but do I remember what that something WAS? No more than I remembered what things I'd rammed into when I was taking Drama in high school, and my legs were forever dotted with black and blue marks.)

Today after work, Belovedest has put up all the standards (upright rails) on the south wall, embracketed them with however many brackets we currently have, and has started to assemble board pieces into full length shelves.

Coincidentally, today I also got a notification from the hardware store that they are shipping the backordered brackets.

There is one free-loving* free-standing bookshelf remaining in the room, where it is cheerfully getting in the way. I suggested a different method of assembly which neither requires turning the boards lengthwise nor doing the assembly behind the Billy, which suggestion was well-received.

Eventually there will be enough Shelf in the media room that some of the things taking up floor space will be able to go on them.

Today I roused in the morning long enough to feel bleugh, then woke up in the afternoon feeling competent to Lounge. Still craving bacon at intervals.


* My high school freshman Biology class had a crucial typo in a sentence about free-living organisms. We reacted about how you'd expect.

wednesday reads and things

Jun. 11th, 2025 07:16 pm
isis: (boromir)
[personal profile] isis
What I've recently finished reading:

Heartstone by C. J. Sansom, the fifth Shardlake book. Looking back at my reviews, I think the author must have got his feet under him better as he went on, or else he just shifted to things more to my taste, because I had said the fourth was my favorite so far, but I think I liked this one even better! This story is set mostly distant from court intrigue, though it comes in at the end; Matthew is given a legal case by Queen Catherine Parr, and it intertwines with his own interest in the situation that led to Ellen Fettiplace's commitment to Bedlam. I'm not going to mention my favorite thing about this book, because it is a spoiler, but - this book contains one of my favorite things. :-) Also I like the way the various plots and sub-plots wind around each other: the legal case, Ellen's history, Barak's relationship with his wife Tamasin (complicated by her pregnancy), Matthew's problematic new steward. Okay, I lied, this book contains two of my favorite things, and the other one is a fascinating and detailed endnote about the real historical events that this book is built around. I loved this in Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom books, and I love it here.

The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko, which is related to the Raybearer series, and which several people in my circle read and enjoyed, so I got it from the library despite my having been disappointed in the series. And as the other reviews said, it was rather heavy-handed issuefic (so was the Raybearer series), but also had clever worldbuilding, charming characters and, I thought, better pacing than the series. (Also was in past rather than present tense, which I prefer.) However, will someone please tell Ifueko that "monotone" is NOT A SPEECH VERB DAMN IT?!?!

What I'm watching now:

We've got three episodes left to go of Andor S2, and gosh isn't it ironic to be watching

Spoiler you can probably guess if you have seen the showa manufactured riot as pretext for government crackdown while a riot is being manufactured as pretext for government crackdown
I did read the interview with the showrunner about how no, he wasn't inspired by current events (that is, recent events, obviously the show was written well before current events!) but it's definitely inspired by historical fascist governments and fights against them, and wow, we are just proving that what goes around comes around, that human foibles are universal, etc etc, but still, holy shit, right? Yeah.

But as I have said before, this is the wonderful thing about SF, that it can recast real issues in ways that make them easier to understand than when you are right in the middle of them argh.

a sanctuary safe and strong

Jun. 11th, 2025 05:01 pm
pensnest: yellow/brown orchid, close up, looks like a little creature (floral orchid alien)
[personal profile] pensnest
I did the cardio/toning class on Monday, and ventured back to Tough Yoga yesterday morning. I did everything (mostly on easy mode, but hey), and after lunch I was so exhausted I fell asleep.

My arms and inner thighs are still muttering at me, but today, I did useful work in the garden for a couple of hours. Something—I assume very hungry caterpillars—having eaten my lovingly cultivated kale and cauliflower plants, I bought defenses for them, and have planted the three extra kale plants I grew originally, plus seeds for kale, broccoli and Everlasting Spinach (we shall see), and the four eight ten red cabbage plants I picked up at the garden centre when purchasing the hoops and nets. Also a copious amount of hoeing, outright weeding, and put a couple more attempts at mange touts into the ground. There have been half a dozen or so peas on the m-t plants, but this is not a useful quantity.

Tonight, I go to the first evening of Drawing class!

more science more love

Jun. 10th, 2025 03:41 pm
queenlua: (Default)
[personal profile] queenlua
Last migration season, I subscribed to this nifty newsletter by a PhD student at UCLA—an "Early Bird Arrival Forecast" that sends personalized emails based on your location, and tells you which birds are early/peaking/late migrants in your area. It's data that I probably could figure out via other sources, but I suspect the data backing his emails is superior, and his simple summary & targeted recommendations were very handy for me to get a sense of what I might see in the field—"ooh, warbling vireos are peaking this week; let's go find one!"

Anyway. I enjoyed his recommendations again this migration season, and also, ngl his final email of the season this year weirdly made me tear up a bit:
There are no birds forecast for this week or last week, so it's time to close down the Early Bird Forecast for your region. Very sad :(

Thank you so much for participating in the second season of the Early Bird Forecast! A few asks from me before you go:

[. . .]

2. Last year, I provided a link for people to donate to me personally (AKA to "buy me a coffee"). In light of recent realized and proposed cuts to government-funded science programs, this year I would like to steer people towards donating to nonprofits that do efficient and important conservation work at home and abroad. A few good charities in this mold are Birdlife International, The American Bird Conservancy, and The Nature Conservancy. If you would like to look for something more local, check out your city or region's Audubon chapter.

3. If donating is out of the question for you, consider contacting your representatives and let them know that you believe federally-funded science is worth supporting. The Early Bird Forecast is actually a by-product of a NASA-funded research fellowship I received in graduate school. If the current administration's proposed budget becomes law, funding for NASA-funded research like mine will decrease by over 50%. This science funding is cheap in the grand scheme of things – If you are the average taxpayer, you paid $0.0006 for my research (thank you!). Plus you get Early Bird Forecast for free, what a steal!

Happy Summer!
god knows a phd student could always use some spare change; incredibly classy of him to point towards Science As A Whole rn instead.

something something "he's not giving up & i'm not either" etc
althea_valara: An icon of the Wind-up Alphinaud minion from Final Fantasy XIV. (wind-up alphinaud)
[personal profile] althea_valara
First y'all: I am disturbed that the original post I grabbed this from called this the "Favorite Characters Colors Addition". It is like nails on a chalkboard, the way I cringed. The correct word in this case is "Edition", and I half-assed a correction using Paint.

I gave a thought of branching out to other Final Fantasy games but no, I could fill the grid only with folks from Final Fantasy XIV, so I did so.

Expandcut to spare your reading pages, but also: some light character spoilers through Endwalker patches )

The week. It starts.

Jun. 9th, 2025 11:56 pm
sine_nomine: (Default)
[personal profile] sine_nomine
In no order:
After taking several days to just chill out and get the hospital out of my cognition (if I was that messed up after 17 days what about folks who stay much longer?) today was the first day back at work. My colleague who was tending toward insufferable jerk seems to have taken a giant step in that direction. But he is managing our voicemail and email so I am glad to not have to think about either right now, especially as phone system migrated while I was out AND we are not answering most calls live because apparently I missed the series of threatening and/or harassing calls we were getting. IJ twigged to the pattern and alerted all the people, which is great but let's not get started on just how many people get really pissy when they can't reach a human. Or don't bother to leave a message. So it was fine for a first day back and I am just trying to work my way through my inbox and send out thank you notes. I want to work on an email to lapsed donors, too.

Talked to Dr. Surgeon today. He concurs that we pull the June date, and sim for the July date. Then we separate future procedures by at LEAST 8 weeks so my hemoglobin has a fighting chance. Nothing like learning just how many types of anemia there are - and how adding iron in when one does not have an iron-based anemia is not nearly as helpful as one might want. We put an IV BACK in my next to last day there because Dr. Hematology's Cover wanted to do two more mini infusions. But HG was only 9.8 after them. Sigh. It's going to be a long crawl back.

Talking to work tomorrow about extended schedule. Not sure if there will have to be FMLA and short-term disability or what. It is looking like I will be living here for around a year(!!!). Thank goodness I have someone carrying for the plants. Today, via Zoom, we took a sprout off my dying dieffenbachia and repotted it. I hope it thrives.

Dr. Hematology's office called today. Set for an appointment two weeks post-discharge. No clue if my email helped, but fingers crossed we can get labs drawn, and then do them every week or two. Dr. Surgeon is fine with every two. I would rather spot trends early.

Met on the phone with Broker reps and the TPA person who has been badly handling my claims. And yet they are somehow the person for processing my outstanding 23-24claims?! The claims that I had been led to believe were getting paid any day now? Except she didn't have any of the claim info that I sent to Broker in like February. Trying to decide if getting a lawyer and/or the union involved is worth it. We will not think about the dollar amounts that I am owed.

Appetite still sucks. And GI system HATED where we went to dinner Saturday. Had wanted to shock my colleagues at Pride yesterday (because most don't know I am here) but I did not want to be that far away from home.

I suppose I should get some sleep.

multifandom questionnaire pt 2

Jun. 9th, 2025 04:59 pm
svgurl: (smallville: clark/oliver 'echo')
[personal profile] svgurl
This is the second part of the questions from the 72 Multifandom questions to ask a fangirl.

Fandom Participation:

1. Do you keep up with any official or fan-authored wikis or encyclopedias about your fandom?
I don't think so. I've definitely used them as resources when I want to write fic and I don't remember specific details or if I want to find out more about, say, DC fandom/characters when I was writing Smallville fic.

#2-12
2. How do you stay updated with the latest news and information concerning your fandom?
I follow people who share my fandom on Tumblr and figure out things from others who post what is going on. Also sometimes, I follow the cast on IG and see if they post anything. Before, I used to be more active in reading fansites and the like, and take more of an initiative in posting news I find as well, but now I tend to take more of a relaxed stance. If I get really curious, I will look into things myself.

3. Are there any forums, social media groups, or online communities you frequent to discuss your fandom?
Back with Smallville, it was Livejournal. There were a lot of ship and fandom specific communities but mainly my journal and the journal of friends. Also, I used to go to some sites, like Divine Intervention, which was a Clois fansite. I was mostly a lurker at Kryptonsite.

These days, it's mainly Tumblr. I'm active on here, but I don't know how much I actively discuss fandoms. Not a fraction as much as I used to do on LJ for sure. I'm on Discord as well, but I tend to prefer one on one conversations. With servers, I tend to lurk more than actively participate.

4. How would you describe the overall atmosphere and culture within the fan community?
Good, as long as you know how to curate your experience. There are ups and downs to every type of fandom. There's drama and fighting, no matter how big or small the fandom is - it's just the type of fighting feels differently and I imagine it's more frustrating when you start out with fewer people and you have to block or worry about cliques since there is a chance of more overlap. It just depends what you want out of fandom and fortunately, there a lot of tools to help make it more pleasant and fun (blocking/muting/etc), which it should be.

5. Have you attended any fan conventions or meet-ups? If so, what was your experience like?
No, I used to want to, but I didn't want to go alone and since I've always tried to keep my online and real life separate, I didn't have anyone to go with.

6. What’s the significance of fan art, fan fiction, or fan videos in your community?
Really significant. I came to be part of fandom because of fanfiction - I had been reading it for years and then I eventually started writing. I started out writing for a very small ship in a big fandom and over the years, I've shipped bigger ships in bigger fandoms (MCU namely and I was able to see Sam/Bucky really grow into something bigger, which was nice). Now my main fandom is pretty big/active and there is a lot of content of all the above. I love looking at fanart and fan videos, though I do feel like I used to watch the latter more in the past. It seems a bit harder to find these days, unless you specifically search it out but the one way the algorithm on YouTube was useful is that if I find one I like, it starts to give me more so I have found some great creators that I wouldn't have otherwise, since I wasn't sure where to look.

7. Are there any charity or social causes your fandom community supports?
Currently, I've seen people participate in the Fandom Trumps Hate, which is obviously multifandom, and also, I think there's a 911forGaza one too.

8. How do fan theories or headcanons contribute to your enjoyment of the fandom?
As with fandom as a whole, there's good and bad. I like reading about other people's theories and headcanons and I enjoy coming up with my own. It's a fun surprise when you can theorize and speculate and end up being right - it has happened a couple of times over the years. However it is frustrating when a certain headcanon or theory can spread and take over and gets treated like canon. Sometimes, it's just mildly annoying because it's hard to avoid and others, when the fans get entitled and throw tantrums when they're not getting what they feel like they "deserve" or something happens that goes against their theory, it's downright frustrating.

9. Are there any rituals or annual events that your fandom community participates in each year?
There were plenty of ship specific events - I remember there being exchanges and the like for Clark/Lois in Smallville (and other ships but I can't tell you about those), both on a now deleted community and the fansite. Also there were Smallville fanfic awards with ship and general categories but that was in the later years. With my current fandom, I've seen annual events on Tumblr. Character/ship/theme specific weeks and a summer ship event that people are into. I haven't actually made anything for them yet but I'm still fairly new to 9-1-1 and am not yet comfortable with doing more than lurking.

10. What is the craziest or most dedicated thing you’ve done for your fandom(s)?
I don't think I've done anything too crazy. Online, I've ran communities and an exchange. Ran to the store to get a copy of the TV Guide that had Tom Welling & Erica Durance on it. Did the whole midnight bookstore visit to get my copy of the 7th HP book. Just fun stuff like that. Nothing too wild, or at least nothing I can think of.

11. Have you created any content or resources that have contributed to the fan community?
I've written fic and in the past few years, made some icons. Earlier on, back in Smallville fandom, since the ship I was writing for was so small and didn't have many other people writing for it, I did make a list of Clark/Oliver ships that I could link people when they expressed interest in the ship and didn't know where to find fic. I hope it helped.

12. Are there any well-known fan community leaders or content creators that you admire?
There are lot of great writers and vidders whose worsk I enjoy and subscribe to but I can't say I'm aware these days of who is "big" in fandom. Obviously you can tell by AO3 stats and who does numbers on Tumblr but I don't pay attention to that.

LJ Idol: Wheel of Chaos

Jun. 8th, 2025 11:56 pm
halfshellvenus: (Default)
[personal profile] halfshellvenus
A new season of LJ Idol is starting up here on Dreamwidth.

Idol is a 'weekly' writing challenge where mad (and maddening) topics get posted, and then you have until the deadline to write your entry and post it. Entries are gathered onto a ballot, and votes determine who is eliminated and who survives to write another week longer.

With this post, I'm officially signing up for this season, and I hope you'll join me!
jadelennox: its the story of an ice cube but every time he feels happy it make him melt a little bit more (story of an ice cube)
[personal profile] jadelennox

For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I made a GF variant of Emma Goldman's blintz recipe this morning. (It's because for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I happened to have farmer cheese in the house.)

When I went looking for something snappy to turn my blintzes into a post, the first quotation on wikiquote is from a newspaper report after her arrest:

I feel sure that the police are helping us more than I could do in ten years. They are making more anarchists than the most prominent people connected with the anarchist cause could make in ten years. If they will only continue I shall be very grateful; they will save me lots of work.

Anyway I am not an anarchist by any measure whatsoever, but I have generally found reading Emma Goldman to be informative and fulfilling (My Disillusionment in Russia is gutwrenching and honestly I think keyboard warriors should read it). Her wikiquote page is so chock full of evergreen statements that I can't even cherrypick anything else to quote. But how about this one?

The very proclaimers of "America first" have long before this betrayed the fundamental principles of real Americanism...the other truly great Americans who aimed to make of this country a haven of refuge, who hoped that all the disinherited and oppressed people in coming to these shores would give character, quality and meaning to the country.

You can make blintzes vegan, too, if you use banana instead of the egg and flip the blattlach very gently. That can be potato or blueberry blintzes, although I've seen a recipe for blintzes with cashew cheese.

In conclusion, blintzes! Mine had strawberries.

just loosen your belt two inches

Jun. 8th, 2025 01:34 pm
pensnest: Text: It is not at all good for anyone to be perfectly idle. (Txt: not good to be perfectly idle)
[personal profile] pensnest
I cooked a big breakfast this morning: chipolata sausages, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, grilled tomato, fried egg. The meat products all came from our local butcher, and were so tasty it was hard to decide which should be my final mouthful*

Why the big breakfast? Beast is off—just now, in fact—for a concert this afternoon, so he won't need to be fed until the nice people who invited his chorus ply them with cake.


* I like to eat 'rotational', ie mouthfuls by turns, but make sure to save a tasty morsel for the last bite. Beast eats in a columnar style, devouring what's on his plate from least favourite to tastiest by eating all of each ingredient before moving on to the next. I suppose a case could also be made for eating in the same way but starting with the favourite.

Which way do you eat a plateful?

(no subject)

Jun. 8th, 2025 01:14 pm
turps: (cats and coffee)
[personal profile] turps
It was a nicely productive day on Thursday.

Started with an early trip to the tip to get rid of a huge bag of garden waste and a couple of bulky but broken electrical items, so it was good to do that bit of decluttering. Plus, the tip shop was closed for a delivery so no chance of buying more stuff to fill those new gaps*g*

From there we called in to see my in laws for a bit, then it was onto the hospital as James had a physio appointment. Unfortunately, his appointment was for 11am, which is a horrible time in terms of parking, and we had to circle the whole site for nearly 30 minutes before a lovely lady pointed to a free space in one of the car parks we'd already gone through three times.

Each time he goes to physio, I expect James to be discharged, but nope again. While his elbow break has healed beautifully, he's lost muscle in his shoulder and still can't bring his hand to his mouth without propping his arm on a surface, or bringing his mouth down to his hand. So, more exercises to do at home, and he's back in a month, and will apparently need to keep going until that muscle is back.

Left the hospital and headed into town as I had an eye exam booked for 12:30. I only wear my glasses when reading books, but had noticed recently things were getting a bit fuzzier reading without them, so figured I should go for a check-up.

Turns out my right eye has got worse, but the other is still the same. So, new reading glasses for me. But what you don't want while sitting with the optometrist is for her to say, 'well, this is rare and don't worry, but….' Turns out I have a very narrow drainage channel around the iris of my right eye, while increases the risk of Angle closure glaucoma. Everything is fine pressure wise right now, but she gave me a leaflet about symptoms, saying if I get any of those to go straight to the eye infirmary, and I'm now on annual eye checks, which I guess is a good thing.

Rosie finally sent the change of day survey, but along with those came some suggestions to express interest in other options, which sound great if they happen. Included in that, actual cooking demos, well-being walks and various other exercise options. I ticked an interest in all except for badminton, which just sounds like a disaster in the making for me if I tried it.

Then she emailed again yesterday to say the class Monday coming is also cancelled as she's off on annual leave. Which is a shame after also being cancelled this last Monday. But, it can't be helped and as she's getting married later this year, I suspect this is the time Rosie's booked for her hen do.

Yesterday was forecast for heavy rain showers all day, so we decided to go to the cinema. Saw The Salt Path on a 11am morning showing, and really enjoyed it. Left Odeon and went to Subway for dinner, then checked the cinema listings again and saw a screening of Karate Kid -- Legends, was about to start, so went to see that too. The film hasn't been getting good reviews, but I actually liked it, even more so as a load of young teen boys were watching too, and they all started applauding at the end, which made me smile. I also saw the full trailer for the new Downton Abbey film, and I'm looking forward to seeing that later in the year.

Today we've driven to a jumble sale as Cat Lady Kay from Consett Cats had a fund-raising table there, and we wanted to support her. I only bought a book, but left a donation, so it was worth the drive.

This afternoon I intend to catch up here, and feed the tomato plants. Then, more binge-watching of Mobland later. What a show that is, it's got me gripped.

(no subject)

Jun. 8th, 2025 04:09 pm
copracat: ronon and john turned away from each other, the image blurred and marked (john absence)
[personal profile] copracat
I'm been reading a few pages of my DW network link lately and discovered I'm not following people I thought I was following. I suspect I have accidentally unfollowed because on my current layout reply is close to the drop down list that has unsubscribe and ban user. I need an icons to the left layout.

Anyway, happy long weekend, Australians. At least those Australians who get the king's birthday holiday this week. I'm listening to the Classic 100 countdown to not-celebrate. Can we have a republic now, please?

The Shelves

Jun. 7th, 2025 09:20 pm
azurelunatic: Operation 'This will most likely end badly' is a go. (end badly)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
I got the standards and brackets for that shelf system, and we are currently at Home Depot, after buying what I sincerely hope is the right configuration of board feet for eight shelves. It's secured to the roof and we're using surface streets.

It's too close to bedtime to start on repair plating the 8 foot boards to the 2 foot boards, probably.