Once again my mystery creator has given me a gorgeous basket of mishloach manot, this time featuring fic and art for The Diplomat.
First Impressions (709 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Diplomat (US TV 2023)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kate Wyler, Hal Wyler, Frances Munning, Pensey, Eidra Park
Additional Tags: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, First Meetings, Canon Compliant
Summary:
First Impressions (709 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Diplomat (US TV 2023)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kate Wyler, Hal Wyler, Frances Munning, Pensey, Eidra Park
Additional Tags: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, First Meetings, Canon Compliant
Summary:
Pensey, Mrs. Munning, & Eidra meet Kate for the first time
Tags:
Happy Purim, and happy ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
purimgifts!
I got the most glorious fic (and image collage) -- this feels like it could be an outtake from the actual books, and that's high praise.
Hamentaschen (438 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elma York/Nathaniel York
Characters: Elma York, Nathaniel York
Additional Tags: Canon Jewish Character, Baking, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Canon Compliant, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1
Summary:
purimgifts!I got the most glorious fic (and image collage) -- this feels like it could be an outtake from the actual books, and that's high praise.
Hamentaschen (438 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elma York/Nathaniel York
Characters: Elma York, Nathaniel York
Additional Tags: Canon Jewish Character, Baking, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Canon Compliant, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1
Summary:
Elma makes Hamentaschen for the first time after the meteor.
Tags:
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cimorene Mar. 3rd, 2026 01:49 pm)
cimorene Mar. 3rd, 2026 01:49 pm)Cats when Wax is working from home:
6.30 Sipuli wakes Wax up demanding breakfast and refuses to let her sleep
7.00 Wax feeds the cats breakfast and Sipuli doesn't finish hers before going back to sleep
9.30 Wax gets up and eats. Sipuli doesn't even come out of her blanket tent.
10.30 I wake up and Tristana follows me to brush my teeth and then goes back to bed while I'm moisturizing my face.
11.00 Sipuli emerges from her tent to lick leftover yogurt from Wax's breakfast bowl and wants some kisses and hugs. She hangs out with me for 5-10 minutes but goes back to the tent before I can even finish my breakfast.
11.30 Tristana wakes up and comes downstairs to yell at me until Wax calls her from upstairs. She sits in Wax's lap for a little while or (more often) goes back to bed.
16.30 Sipuli wakes up and comes out of the tent to get cuddled for 10-30 minutes, then gets sleepy and goes back in the tent.
17.00 Tristana wakes up and comes downstairs and starts yelling incessantly for attention. This wakes Sipuli who also comes out and wants attention.
18.00 Wax finishes work and comes downstairs.
19.00 Cats get dinner.
Cats when Wax has to go into the office:
6.30 Sipuli starts breakfast campaign.
7.00 Cat breakfast.
8.30 Wax gets up and eats breakfast, ignored by Sipuli.
10.30 I wake up and Tristana goes back to bed while I'm moisturizing.
11.00 Sipuli cleans Wax's bowl and wants cuddles.
11.10 Tristana comes downstairs and starts yowling for me to pay attention to her. This eventually wakes Sipuli and they both complain constantly or intermittently every time I'm in the other half of the house until sometime in the afternoon when they finally both fall asleep, presumably from exhaustion.
17.30 Both cats wake up and start dinner campaign, usually while I'm trying to prepare our dinner.
18.45 Wax arrives.
19.00 Cat dinner and then our dinner.
6.30 Sipuli wakes Wax up demanding breakfast and refuses to let her sleep
7.00 Wax feeds the cats breakfast and Sipuli doesn't finish hers before going back to sleep
9.30 Wax gets up and eats. Sipuli doesn't even come out of her blanket tent.
10.30 I wake up and Tristana follows me to brush my teeth and then goes back to bed while I'm moisturizing my face.
11.00 Sipuli emerges from her tent to lick leftover yogurt from Wax's breakfast bowl and wants some kisses and hugs. She hangs out with me for 5-10 minutes but goes back to the tent before I can even finish my breakfast.
11.30 Tristana wakes up and comes downstairs to yell at me until Wax calls her from upstairs. She sits in Wax's lap for a little while or (more often) goes back to bed.
16.30 Sipuli wakes up and comes out of the tent to get cuddled for 10-30 minutes, then gets sleepy and goes back in the tent.
17.00 Tristana wakes up and comes downstairs and starts yelling incessantly for attention. This wakes Sipuli who also comes out and wants attention.
18.00 Wax finishes work and comes downstairs.
19.00 Cats get dinner.
Cats when Wax has to go into the office:
6.30 Sipuli starts breakfast campaign.
7.00 Cat breakfast.
8.30 Wax gets up and eats breakfast, ignored by Sipuli.
10.30 I wake up and Tristana goes back to bed while I'm moisturizing.
11.00 Sipuli cleans Wax's bowl and wants cuddles.
11.10 Tristana comes downstairs and starts yowling for me to pay attention to her. This eventually wakes Sipuli and they both complain constantly or intermittently every time I'm in the other half of the house until sometime in the afternoon when they finally both fall asleep, presumably from exhaustion.
17.30 Both cats wake up and start dinner campaign, usually while I'm trying to prepare our dinner.
18.45 Wax arrives.
19.00 Cat dinner and then our dinner.
Tags:
The doctor team found a uti and adjusted the antibiotics he was on from his last visit, and he has been his normal self since waking up Monday (yesterday evening for me when I was notified). He should get to go home soon!
Japp has been uncaged all the time for a couple of days and is enjoying spending more time in his favorite spot next to a radiator under the sewing table by the west window. He seems normal and pretty active, although he still naps most of the time (as he should since he's 102 years old). We're thinking we should try to provide a bit more enrichment and interact with him more often, although he doesn't really want human interaction very much 😂. His reaction to being approached is frequently to thump and go hide, even though most of the time we talk to him it's just to give him treats! So his personality is unchanged. 😂 We do think he might be somewhat senile now. He shows some signs of forgetting what he was doing in the middle or getting confused about which way to go in his familiar space (Rowan was doing this too in the last couple years). But he always finds his way again, so far.
With cat divorce and Wax now leaving the house this means that one cat is alone the whole time she's gone. The cats like to nap almost the whole day, but they both also wake up a couple of times a day. When Wax was upstairs working Tristana often chose to ignore her in favor of sleeping in bed alone, but now she's started yowling her little complaints every day. 🫩 Sipuli naps a bit more than her in the morning but is fully capable of waking up and complaining any time I'm out in the other part of the house.
Japp has been uncaged all the time for a couple of days and is enjoying spending more time in his favorite spot next to a radiator under the sewing table by the west window. He seems normal and pretty active, although he still naps most of the time (as he should since he's 102 years old). We're thinking we should try to provide a bit more enrichment and interact with him more often, although he doesn't really want human interaction very much 😂. His reaction to being approached is frequently to thump and go hide, even though most of the time we talk to him it's just to give him treats! So his personality is unchanged. 😂 We do think he might be somewhat senile now. He shows some signs of forgetting what he was doing in the middle or getting confused about which way to go in his familiar space (Rowan was doing this too in the last couple years). But he always finds his way again, so far.
With cat divorce and Wax now leaving the house this means that one cat is alone the whole time she's gone. The cats like to nap almost the whole day, but they both also wake up a couple of times a day. When Wax was upstairs working Tristana often chose to ignore her in favor of sleeping in bed alone, but now she's started yowling her little complaints every day. 🫩 Sipuli naps a bit more than her in the morning but is fully capable of waking up and complaining any time I'm out in the other part of the house.
Tags:
I really enjoyed this season of Bridgerton despite being mostly indifferent to Benedict as a character. Yerin Ha as Sophie was everything - I really hope this launches her into a long, bright career. ( spoilers )
In other fannish news, I saw some folks on bsky discussing who the best lightsaber duelist is in Star Wars, and since I didn't really know the people being quoted, I took myself to tumblr to post about it. I also texted my eldest nephew, who is the biggest Anakin and Obi-Wan fan I know (which, given some of the fangirls I know, is saying something) and his knee-jerk response was Anakin*. Which is the wrong answer, so we argued back and forth a bit, and he came around to my way of thinking that it has to be Obi-Wan, even though we never see him go up against Palpatine or Mace Windu (who may have beaten Palpatine if not for Anakin).
I did see people saying Ahsoka, because she survives Maul, Vader, and very briefly, Palpatine, but as much as I love her, she survives and escapes. She doesn't win. The list of Obi-Wan's duels is extensive and no one ever even lays a blade on him that I recall (though he doesn't beat Dooku, which was an argument my nephew made, and Anakin eventually does) until he puts up his saber and lets Vader kill him. Like, is Obi-Wan destroyed emotionally and psychologically by dueling with Anakin? One hundred percent! But he still wins until not winning is the best way to win in the long-term.
*I think you can make a case for him when he's Vader, but even then, Obi-Wan beats him on Mustafar and he only wins on the Death Star because Obi-Wan lets him. In the OWK show, he maybe sets Obi-Wan on fire a little but Obi-Wan takes no real damage in any of their fights until the Death Star.
*
In other fannish news, I saw some folks on bsky discussing who the best lightsaber duelist is in Star Wars, and since I didn't really know the people being quoted, I took myself to tumblr to post about it. I also texted my eldest nephew, who is the biggest Anakin and Obi-Wan fan I know (which, given some of the fangirls I know, is saying something) and his knee-jerk response was Anakin*. Which is the wrong answer, so we argued back and forth a bit, and he came around to my way of thinking that it has to be Obi-Wan, even though we never see him go up against Palpatine or Mace Windu (who may have beaten Palpatine if not for Anakin).
I did see people saying Ahsoka, because she survives Maul, Vader, and very briefly, Palpatine, but as much as I love her, she survives and escapes. She doesn't win. The list of Obi-Wan's duels is extensive and no one ever even lays a blade on him that I recall (though he doesn't beat Dooku, which was an argument my nephew made, and Anakin eventually does) until he puts up his saber and lets Vader kill him. Like, is Obi-Wan destroyed emotionally and psychologically by dueling with Anakin? One hundred percent! But he still wins until not winning is the best way to win in the long-term.
*I think you can make a case for him when he's Vader, but even then, Obi-Wan beats him on Mustafar and he only wins on the Death Star because Obi-Wan lets him. In the OWK show, he maybe sets Obi-Wan on fire a little but Obi-Wan takes no real damage in any of their fights until the Death Star.
*
1. Wax Sent to Customer Service Jail
Yesterday I askedwaxjism, "Hey, don't you want to make a dreamwidth update about being sent back to jail?"
"Nope," she said.
Wax has been feeling sick (?) since we both had a nervous breakdown a year ago last September after losing two cats. She finally went to the doctor a month and a half ago and had a bunch of bloodtests but they found nothing and, I gather, said the next step is to check whether it's hormones or something and she needs to see a different doctor (a gynecologist, maybe?). But they didn't just give her a referral - apparently she has to call back to ask about how to get a referral, or what, because she doesn't actually know how to get that next appointment. Annnnnd she hasn't accumulated enough spoons again yet to do that (including when she had a week of vacation a few weeks ago).
Feeling under the weather has snowballed into near-total burnout and exhaustion and she has been having trouble focusing at work, and as a result her boss called her and revoked her Work From Home privileges, as of two weeks back. She's going back to the saltmines (the customer service mines) every day, and as a result she's even more tired the rest of the time.
On the plus side, it's good for her mental health to leave the house and have a schedule that makes her walk around and breathe fresh air everyday. Not sure if it's as good for her as the extra exhaustion is bad though.
2. My Dad Hospitalized for Copious Hallucination
My dad (69), a quadriplegic wheelchair user who has been recovering from a series of antibiotic resistant infections and other complications and in and out of the hospital constantly for like a year, has a sudden, brand-new, unusual problem. Friday he apparently woke up feeling odd and started hallucinating, at first things like a pool of water on the table or a black webbing on his own hand, then a lizard under the chair and a cat jumping onto the ceiling; they took him to the ER, and the hallucinations got more vivid and numerous very quickly. He was seeing people and animals in the ER and asking my mom if there were really kittens on the floor. By Saturday he was talking to my favorite aunt and uncle (who weren't there) most of the day and by the end of Saturday he was no longer aware that he was in the hospital. My dad has no mental disorders except anxiety, and the doctors were ruling out various kinds of dementia at first, but they thought it was likely to be something acute. He was having urine tests and x-rays and EEGs yesterday, and being interviewed by various doctors. He spent the early part of Sunday keeping my mom awake talking to hallucinated people and asking her to interact with things that weren't there (some tax paperwork on the table he said he had to file, a book he said he saw, stools and tables he wanted her to move); later he was in the house I grew up in (they moved out something like ten years ago), my grandparents' house (sold almost ten years ago), a restaurant, and imaginary places; and he had a brief spell not recognizing my mom, but he remembered who she was a minute later. The psychiatrists were saying they thought it was probably not neurological, and might be metabolic. He seems to be in less danger than he was at several points last year, but this is very stressful for my mom and sister. They both seem scared. I wish I could go there. My parents live with my sister in Louisiana.
3. Loss of One Bunny.
Rowan died Saturday night, fairly suddenly, we think basically of old age. 10 years is thought to be the maximum life span of our type of bunny, and they're 10 years and 4 months right now, but of the two, Japp has been sick several times and Rowan's never had a single health scare and has also been much more active, playful, and happy in recent years. He only seemed sick on Saturday, but he had eaten his most recent meal (which is usually the first sign of danger for ailing bunnies). I've been trying all morning to get in touch with the vet to take him to get cremated: I got up early to call them before Wax left for work with the car, but couldn't get through (and still can't). I will make a separate memorial post about him, but I have to collect pictures first. It's very sad, but we're relieved that it was quick and he didn't seem to suffer and that he had a long happy life and basically died at 101. Also relieved that he was the one to die first: he was much more clingy to Japp, who has always been more independent and not particularly sociable. I am less worried about Japp getting lonely.
Yesterday I asked
waxjism, "Hey, don't you want to make a dreamwidth update about being sent back to jail?" "Nope," she said.
Wax has been feeling sick (?) since we both had a nervous breakdown a year ago last September after losing two cats. She finally went to the doctor a month and a half ago and had a bunch of bloodtests but they found nothing and, I gather, said the next step is to check whether it's hormones or something and she needs to see a different doctor (a gynecologist, maybe?). But they didn't just give her a referral - apparently she has to call back to ask about how to get a referral, or what, because she doesn't actually know how to get that next appointment. Annnnnd she hasn't accumulated enough spoons again yet to do that (including when she had a week of vacation a few weeks ago).
Feeling under the weather has snowballed into near-total burnout and exhaustion and she has been having trouble focusing at work, and as a result her boss called her and revoked her Work From Home privileges, as of two weeks back. She's going back to the saltmines (the customer service mines) every day, and as a result she's even more tired the rest of the time.
On the plus side, it's good for her mental health to leave the house and have a schedule that makes her walk around and breathe fresh air everyday. Not sure if it's as good for her as the extra exhaustion is bad though.
2. My Dad Hospitalized for Copious Hallucination
My dad (69), a quadriplegic wheelchair user who has been recovering from a series of antibiotic resistant infections and other complications and in and out of the hospital constantly for like a year, has a sudden, brand-new, unusual problem. Friday he apparently woke up feeling odd and started hallucinating, at first things like a pool of water on the table or a black webbing on his own hand, then a lizard under the chair and a cat jumping onto the ceiling; they took him to the ER, and the hallucinations got more vivid and numerous very quickly. He was seeing people and animals in the ER and asking my mom if there were really kittens on the floor. By Saturday he was talking to my favorite aunt and uncle (who weren't there) most of the day and by the end of Saturday he was no longer aware that he was in the hospital. My dad has no mental disorders except anxiety, and the doctors were ruling out various kinds of dementia at first, but they thought it was likely to be something acute. He was having urine tests and x-rays and EEGs yesterday, and being interviewed by various doctors. He spent the early part of Sunday keeping my mom awake talking to hallucinated people and asking her to interact with things that weren't there (some tax paperwork on the table he said he had to file, a book he said he saw, stools and tables he wanted her to move); later he was in the house I grew up in (they moved out something like ten years ago), my grandparents' house (sold almost ten years ago), a restaurant, and imaginary places; and he had a brief spell not recognizing my mom, but he remembered who she was a minute later. The psychiatrists were saying they thought it was probably not neurological, and might be metabolic. He seems to be in less danger than he was at several points last year, but this is very stressful for my mom and sister. They both seem scared. I wish I could go there. My parents live with my sister in Louisiana.
3. Loss of One Bunny.
Rowan died Saturday night, fairly suddenly, we think basically of old age. 10 years is thought to be the maximum life span of our type of bunny, and they're 10 years and 4 months right now, but of the two, Japp has been sick several times and Rowan's never had a single health scare and has also been much more active, playful, and happy in recent years. He only seemed sick on Saturday, but he had eaten his most recent meal (which is usually the first sign of danger for ailing bunnies). I've been trying all morning to get in touch with the vet to take him to get cremated: I got up early to call them before Wax left for work with the car, but couldn't get through (and still can't). I will make a separate memorial post about him, but I have to collect pictures first. It's very sad, but we're relieved that it was quick and he didn't seem to suffer and that he had a long happy life and basically died at 101. Also relieved that he was the one to die first: he was much more clingy to Japp, who has always been more independent and not particularly sociable. I am less worried about Japp getting lonely.
Tags:
Last night, I logged off work and got into bed for a proper nap, none of this half-assed falling asleep on the couch business, and I thought I'd set an alarm so it didn't go more than an hour or so, but it turns out that all I did was open up the clock/alarm app on my phone without setting it, so I woke up at 8:30 pm all befuddled. I decided at that point that fuck it, we ball sleep, so I brushed my teeth, changed into my jammies, and went back to bed. And slept pretty well! I woke up once or twice but had no real trouble getting back to sleep, and then I woke up for good around 7:45 am, so it was like a FIFTEEN HOUR night. Which is bonkers, but I guess I needed it?
Anyway, I did a very small recs update today for February:
unfitforsociety has been updated for February 2026 with 7 recs in 3 fandoms:
* 5 Heated Rivalry and 1 Heated Rivalry/Sesame Street crossover
* 1 The Pitt
Maybe once I finish my DCC reread, I will get back to reading more fic, idk. It's just very hard to pay attention to anything these days, thanks to *gestures* everything.
*
Anyway, I did a very small recs update today for February:
unfitforsociety has been updated for February 2026 with 7 recs in 3 fandoms:* 5 Heated Rivalry and 1 Heated Rivalry/Sesame Street crossover
* 1 The Pitt
Maybe once I finish my DCC reread, I will get back to reading more fic, idk. It's just very hard to pay attention to anything these days, thanks to *gestures* everything.
*
Tags:
(Solely because they're decommissioning 3G, so my old Galaxy A8 stopped working for phones and texts, grrr.)
*spends hours tweaking and logging into things and all the usual stuff, ugh*
Google: Welcome to Gemini!
me: *kills it with fire*
*spends hours tweaking and logging into things and all the usual stuff, ugh*
Google: Welcome to Gemini!
me: *kills it with fire*
Tags:
It was time for another blood donation, and I finally found time to do that today after work.
I got lucky: the intake person managed a finger stick that didn’t hurt (this is usually the worst part of donation, so it’s noticeable*, and the phlebotomist was also excellent. (Also, very attractive.) We were chatting for the 5 min or so it took to drain enough blood, and it turned out that his sister graduated from $MyEmployer, 19 years ago. Which surprised me enough that I used my outside-my-head voice to say that either his sister is much older, or he looks seriously younger than he is. Turns out he’s 20, and all his siblings (and half-siblings) are seriously older than him: his father is in his 70s, and could be his grandfather. Whoa. He mentioned that he would’ve liked the chance to be a kid with siblings closer in age to hang out together, but did have the advantage of many more adults invested in him (in a way that made me think of Clara Barton.**)
On the way out, I recognized the other phlebotomist who’s my birthday twin, and he said that {other woman in a donor chair} was also our birthday twin, so we had a birthday triplets moment :-)
(And I got to tell her that we also share our birthday with The Count, from Sesame Street.)
* apparently Children’s Hospital and possibly also the Red Cross have ditched the finger stick (to determine hemoglobin levels; too much or too little (much more likely) disqualifies the donor for the day) in favor of something non-invasive. I’d really like MGH to get with the program.
** also apparently, I keep thinking Clara Barton thoughts around when donating blood. I suppose it makes some sense.
I got lucky: the intake person managed a finger stick that didn’t hurt (this is usually the worst part of donation, so it’s noticeable*, and the phlebotomist was also excellent. (Also, very attractive.) We were chatting for the 5 min or so it took to drain enough blood, and it turned out that his sister graduated from $MyEmployer, 19 years ago. Which surprised me enough that I used my outside-my-head voice to say that either his sister is much older, or he looks seriously younger than he is. Turns out he’s 20, and all his siblings (and half-siblings) are seriously older than him: his father is in his 70s, and could be his grandfather. Whoa. He mentioned that he would’ve liked the chance to be a kid with siblings closer in age to hang out together, but did have the advantage of many more adults invested in him (in a way that made me think of Clara Barton.**)
On the way out, I recognized the other phlebotomist who’s my birthday twin, and he said that {other woman in a donor chair} was also our birthday twin, so we had a birthday triplets moment :-)
(And I got to tell her that we also share our birthday with The Count, from Sesame Street.)
* apparently Children’s Hospital and possibly also the Red Cross have ditched the finger stick (to determine hemoglobin levels; too much or too little (much more likely) disqualifies the donor for the day) in favor of something non-invasive. I’d really like MGH to get with the program.
** also apparently, I keep thinking Clara Barton thoughts around when donating blood. I suppose it makes some sense.
i'm dug out from the storm, by which i mean my car is dug out from the storm. :D i did it yesterday because i worked from home because the u was closed for the second day in a row. also it was sunny and perfect weather for shoveling. and it wasn't as awful as expected! and work was extremely slow because did i mention the u was closed? monday morning i woke up and couldn't see out of any of my windows because they were so covered with snow. so i opened said windows and knocked the snow off the screens so i could see and didn't feel like i was living in a cave. and then there was nothing TO see because the snow started sunday night and kept going until early monday night and holy cow was it windy.
it was so bad that for the first time since it was founded 153 years ago the boston globe didn't actually print the paper. at least one dunkin donuts was closed which is kind of like a waffle house being closed. one of the admins f got 30" where she lives and two admins lost power (one just for monday and one monday morning through tuesday morning) and fall river - lizzie borden's home town and down near rhode island - got 41". holy yikes. (boston proper got 17" but i think out by me we got closer to 12". providence broke a record with like three feet.)
have some pics of the snow, mostly new york with a couple connecticut and one east boston. sharing mostly for the person in the red jacket filming themselves lying in the snow. also i just really like photos of snowy places. they look so cold.
have some more. the ones from cambridge, ma, are all harvard square.
and more that aren't all nyc.
enjoy some quick videos from nyc especially slide 8. nail techs are a different breed.
and then it snowed this morning on the way to work. :DDD
questions from the olympics. oh, you thought we were done with the olympics around here? surprise.
i hate you, jack hughes - a canadian hockey fan put an autographed jack hughes rookie card on ebay for $1m cad. someone was very, very upset by the outcome of the men's hockey, weren't they. (if that link is borked the listing is here. the seller has since taken it down.)
and finally because i finally finished a book! the wednesday reading meme! which i apparently haven't done in almost a year. >.<
What I just finished reading:
a master of djinn by p djèlà clark which i originally bought to read on the cruise back in july. (i have sadly become a very slow reader.) the worldbuilding is fantastic and i liked a lot of the secondary characters altho it took half the book before i really connected with the main character. clark really likes short choppy sentences and sentence fragments, and he's likewise a big fan of speaking verbs that aren't "said". like, there's a scene with the main character and her partner at a meeting and in six different lines of dialogue from six different characters there are six different speaking verbs. (and some of them are the kinds of verbs that generally have like a target - "hi, how are you," character a greeted. "everything's fine, don't worry," character b reassured. that kind of thing. it's a stylistic choice but it makes me nuts.) i was invested in the story and i liked the various twists and turns - it starts with a mass murder which the main character has to investigate - but some of the actual writing i didn't love. but it's set in a steampunky alternate history cairo and there are djinn and all of that was fabulous.
What I am reading now:
blood, sweat & chrome: the wild and true story of mad max: fury road by kyle buchanan which i have been reading a lot longer than a master of djinn. it's an oral history of the making of the movie and i like a good look behind the scenes so i'm enjoying it.
What I'm going to read next:
probably yarrow by charles de lint. i found it at a very small library.
it was so bad that for the first time since it was founded 153 years ago the boston globe didn't actually print the paper. at least one dunkin donuts was closed which is kind of like a waffle house being closed. one of the admins f got 30" where she lives and two admins lost power (one just for monday and one monday morning through tuesday morning) and fall river - lizzie borden's home town and down near rhode island - got 41". holy yikes. (boston proper got 17" but i think out by me we got closer to 12". providence broke a record with like three feet.)
have some pics of the snow, mostly new york with a couple connecticut and one east boston. sharing mostly for the person in the red jacket filming themselves lying in the snow. also i just really like photos of snowy places. they look so cold.
have some more. the ones from cambridge, ma, are all harvard square.
and more that aren't all nyc.
enjoy some quick videos from nyc especially slide 8. nail techs are a different breed.
and then it snowed this morning on the way to work. :DDD
questions from the olympics. oh, you thought we were done with the olympics around here? surprise.
i hate you, jack hughes - a canadian hockey fan put an autographed jack hughes rookie card on ebay for $1m cad. someone was very, very upset by the outcome of the men's hockey, weren't they. (if that link is borked the listing is here. the seller has since taken it down.)
and finally because i finally finished a book! the wednesday reading meme! which i apparently haven't done in almost a year. >.<
What I just finished reading:
a master of djinn by p djèlà clark which i originally bought to read on the cruise back in july. (i have sadly become a very slow reader.) the worldbuilding is fantastic and i liked a lot of the secondary characters altho it took half the book before i really connected with the main character. clark really likes short choppy sentences and sentence fragments, and he's likewise a big fan of speaking verbs that aren't "said". like, there's a scene with the main character and her partner at a meeting and in six different lines of dialogue from six different characters there are six different speaking verbs. (and some of them are the kinds of verbs that generally have like a target - "hi, how are you," character a greeted. "everything's fine, don't worry," character b reassured. that kind of thing. it's a stylistic choice but it makes me nuts.) i was invested in the story and i liked the various twists and turns - it starts with a mass murder which the main character has to investigate - but some of the actual writing i didn't love. but it's set in a steampunky alternate history cairo and there are djinn and all of that was fabulous.
What I am reading now:
blood, sweat & chrome: the wild and true story of mad max: fury road by kyle buchanan which i have been reading a lot longer than a master of djinn. it's an oral history of the making of the movie and i like a good look behind the scenes so i'm enjoying it.
What I'm going to read next:
probably yarrow by charles de lint. i found it at a very small library.
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My father had an ancient Macbook -- not sure what he used it for, since he had not one but two newer iMacs as well as a couple tablets, but my mother said he did use it. A few months ago she asked me to dispose of it safely. I was eventually able to guess the password so I could look around. I didn't find any recent data on it but I made a backup just in case, then tried to wipe it so I could recycle it.
This laptop was running one of the feline operating systems (Leopard, I think). When I tried to wipe it, it asked for the installation CDs. CDs! How quaint. Uh, I didn't get any of those. I sought wisdom on the Internet but the Internet can be fickle, so I set it aside for a while.
Today I took it to my local Apple store to see if they could help. I asked if they could either wipe the disk or remove it so that I could recycle the rest of the hardware. While the friendly tech who was helping me tried to wipe it, she commented that she hadn't seen a Blackbook in such good condition for a long time. (I had not previously heard the name "Blackbook". Cute.) She wasn't able to wipe it either and asked if she could take it in back to extract the drive. Apparently she attracted some onlookers who also hadn't seen a Blackbook in a while (or maybe ever, judging by the ages of some of the people I saw).
She came back a few minutes later with the now-separated laptop and hard drive, and told me that if I was getting rid of it anyway, the store could recycle it for me. I was happy to save myself a trip to the e-waste folks, and if doing it this way helps even a small bit of it be reused rather than dumped in a landfill, that's a nice bonus.
A sticker on the hard drive indicated that it was manufactured in 2007. (That tracks with what I got from the OS.) Aside from being old, slow, and unable to run a modern operating system, the machine worked fine, which is pretty good for hardware that's old enough to drink. I'm on my third Mac Mini, and each replacement has been due to obsolescence, not hardware failure -- unlike the string of PCs I had before switching from Windows. I wonder how long my father's iPad (which I now have) will last.
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