smokingboot

Someone overheard that I'm working with terraria and gave me this fairy garden lantern so I could turn it into a terrarium. :D So today I deconstructed it and cleaned the container.

The lantern part has an open top with a hanging loop and a solid base. It has a hexagonal shape with a narrow top, widest part below the middle, and slightly narrower base. The panes appear to be rigid plastic. The frame seems to be metal. There's a bit of heft to the base, even when empty.

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Current Mood: accomplished

flemmings

Googling around for discussions of Boneland gets me a reminder of Cocteau's Orphée, a forgotten fave from my 20s. Probably seen in that same Film Odyssey series that introduced me to Kurosawa that was another 'opposite of nail in coffin' (unconscious impetus?) that led me almost twenty years later to go to Japan. Seventeen years is nothing now but then it was several lifetimes. Anyway, Orphée. Brief clips on YouTube suggest I might find it reeeally overdone now, and Jean Marais is entirely Too Much. But. But. I would like to see it again.

Equally I would like to go to some upcoming concerts hereabouts. Ballets Trocadero, or a candlelight and surely truncated Magic Flute. The latter is at a local church where I could enquire about how disabled seating works with first come, first served. The former is way down Yonge St and pricey, and I have these dental bills still piling up. But I'd like to be out and about again because this crippled mindset is getting me down.

Will I read Boneland? Am disinclined, especially if I'm supposed to think that all of the preceding books is Colin's dying hallucination, or Colin refusing to remember being raped, or something equally unpleasant.

ysabetwordsmith

Scientists invent 'glue gun' filled with 3D-printed materials that heal broken bones 'in minutes'

Tested on rabbits, the device was able to quickly create complex bone implants using 3D printing technology, without prefabricating a metal or donor-bone graft in advance.

Placed directly on the area of impact, the 3D-printed grafts offer flexibility while also releasing anti-inflammatory antibiotics and promoting natural bone regrowth at the site, according to the research, published in the journal “Device.”

This really is closer to handheld 3D printing than a true bone glue. The former is useful when large parts of bone are missing. The latter is what you want for attaching the ends of a bone broken in half or to piece together many fragments. And while replacing lost sections or puzzling pieces together are invasive processes, just sealing one break doesn't have to be.

Of course, that's if hospitals can be arsed to provide this type of care. They probably won't.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and sweltering. It is 90°F in mid-September. Fuck climate change. >_<

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds. The metal birdbath was empty again.

EDIT 9/14/25 -- I set up 9 crabapple seeds in a baggie of damp sand to cold-stratify in the refrigerator.

EDIT 9/14/25 -- I disassembled the fairy garden so I can use its lantern container as a terrarium.

EDIT 9/14/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 9/14/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

9/'14/25 -- I watered the irises, old picnic table, new picnic table, septic garden, telephone pole garden, and a few seedlings in the savanna. *goflopnow*

Cicadas and crickets are singing. I've seen a lot of butterflies today -- cabbage, painted ladies, and monarchs. :D

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

conuly

I'm even not bad at decluttering, so long as it's okay to literally throw everything out. (They'll sooner or later send another copy of that late bill, don't worry! And you can always order another birth certificate, probably.)

But I'm not so good at routine maintenance. Does anybody have any already set up daily/weekly/monthly/periodically checklists for various areas of the house that they can recommend?

mallorys_camera

I'm grumpy because one of my clients just sent me a ginormous assignment. My favorite method of making money involves glancing down at the ground & picking up that $50,000-bill nobody else has noticed, not laboring over a keyboard.

However, I should be grateful since the U.S. is clearly in a recession, even if they haven't called it yet. Time to start stuffing money into that mattress! Although that dollar bill you stuff into your mattress today will only be worth 90¢ next week.

Recession plus inflation—just about the most horrible economic formula you can possibly imagine.

I'm cheering myself up by thinking thoughts like, Well, it's really not going to affect me! I'll be dead soon!

Which when you get right down to it is not a particularly cheerful thought.

###

Meanwhile, Adrienne had chided me—deservedly—for not updating the Shawangunk Dems' website for months & months & months, so I spent yesterday morning working on that.

Then Ichabod called & chided me for my insufficiently progressive views on the racial divide. Yes, I do believe in color blindness—say it loud & say it proud!—and you're gonna have to reset the starting marker for history at some point else the current (completely unacceptable) situation is just gonna go on & on & on. So why not do it now?

Then I trotted off to the Shawangunk Dems' monthly meeting where I learned that Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill cut all Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. Not just for abortions! But also for birth control and Pap smears. And this made me very upset indeed. There's not a single thing I can do about it, though.

In the evening, I watched a documentary about Charlie Sheen who ingested more drugs than any other single person on the planet, & I decided—Work in Progress alert!—to borrow his crack cocaine habit & give it to Flavia, since that's an ongoing motiff in the Work in Progress: Neal is gonna save each of the sister wives from some incipient doom. Flavia's doom will be drugs, Daria's doom will be some mountain hike, but I still haven't figured out what Grazia's doom is, and I need to come up with it before I can start Chapter 3.

ysabetwordsmith

This post covers planting the candy jar terrarium. Begin with Part 1: Setup.

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Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today I assembled the large candy jar terrarium. Continue with Part 2: Plants.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished

conuly

I'll try to remember to upload the pic later. It's not a very good picture, but then, I was wary of trying to get too close.

****************

( Read more... )

summersgate

Jules and I were walking down by the gravel pit of the lake this afternoon and he saw this weird bone. I thought it was a skull of some kind. Came home and looked it up and it's a cormorant synsacrum (pelvis).

IMG_20250913_165539171_HDR~2.jpg

Reminds me of a dragon skull.

thatjustwontbreak

Now that we're two weeks into September, I want to write about August. :)

As previously mentioned, I completed a Generative Writing Class in August, but I also did a couple other short-term things for the fun of it.

Crochet Class: This was so fun! I've never been able to make good progress on crochet by myself so this was perfect for me. It was a four-week course where I went to a (knitting) shop to with three other people to learn how to crochet from the shop owner. It felt more like an individualized tutorial because we were all clearly at different levels and working on different things. I now have a scarf in progress, a bunch of granny squares, and some round coaster things that I'm pretty pleased with. It's nice to have little projects to pick up to keep my hands busy.

Songwriting with A.G. Cook: This was wayyyy over my head but I loved it anyways. It was put on by the School of Song, which offers online songwriting/music courses, sometimes with big names teaching them. There were at least 800 people in my class. Every week, A.G. would lecture on a topic, give us a songwriting assignment, have a Q&A midway through the week, and then at the end of the week, there was an opportunity to join a small group of other songwriters to share your songs.

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Cardio Class: For August, I went to this class weekly on Saturdays, but the teacher does it a few days a week at the local community center. It is technically a cardio hip hop class, but in reality the instructor does a great variety of choreo/music than just hip hop. The main draw for me last month was that the class was outdoors, which was lovely. It's now indoors again, which doesn't work well for me, but I'm glad I went. Happy to hip hop around for a month.

Next! For the fall, I'm resuming my Ukulele Ensemble class and also taking a month-long novel writing class in October. For all seasons, I continue going to yoga and lyra/aerial hoop classes, but my hope is to add running into the mix. I was supposed to take a Couch to 5K class starting today through the community center but they cancelled it due to low enrollment. Instead, yesterday I just did the first day with my partner on a local path. He doesn't run so he just followed me with the timer for support. (Also, I can't really run very fast, so it's not like I ever got that far away from him during my 60 second runs. :D)

ETA: Fixed the cut and links!

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: next to my bowl of watermelon
Current Music: britpop by A.G.

ysabetwordsmith

No one knows what these strange larvae grow into

Constructing the tree of life for parasitic barnacles and their relatives.
Not all barnacles just sit on rocks and ships. Some invade crabs, growing like a parasitic root system that hijacks their bodies. A mysterious group called y-larvae has baffled scientists for over a century, with no known adult stage. Genetic evidence now reveals they’re related to barnacles and may also be parasites — lurking unseen inside other creatures.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly sunny and hot.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds. The honeybees had drained the metal birdbath again.

9/13/25 -- I assembled the large terrarium with a polka dot plant and a fern.

9/13/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

9/13/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

9/13/25 -- I watered the patio plants.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

I’m exhausted but am surviving. How can I heal from burnout without expensive time off?

You can't. Burnout comes from exceeding your capacity over the long term, doing more than your body and mind can handle sustainably. It can permanently injure you. It can kill you. As long as you continue overworking yourself, burnout will get worse. Before you can heal a knife wound, you must first remove the knife.

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Current Mood: busy

mallorys_camera

The state of the world depressed me so much yesterday that I spent the day binging a Netflix series called Love Life.

Love Life starts out with that age-old addage that everybody is looking for their perfect soul mate and proceeds from there into the quaint rituals of Millennial couplings, spread out over 10 half-hour episodes. The show got canceled after two seasons.

There were things about the show I really liked and things about it that irritated the hell out of me. Among the things that irritated me—

The second season focuses on the romantic misadventures of a young Black male protagonist.

When he meets the woman of his dreams, she tells him, "Honestly, I just can't dance in a room full of white people. They make me feel like I'm on display."

And the couple flirts by googling "ugly white babies."

###

Now!

If you showed a white couple flirting by googling "ugly black babies," you'd be portraying ignorant racist creeps. There would be no cute, ironic subtext to it.

But this Black couple, we're given to understand, is hip & adorable.

This kind of double standard is absolutely fucked.

Either nobody should be allowed to make these kinds of racially motivated digs or everybody should be allowed to make these kinds of racially motivated digs.

ysabetwordsmith

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

What is the most important right our government allows for?

Liberty. With that, you can get most of the others; without it, you're screwed.

Life is also important, but America has ample evidence of people valuing freedom over mere survival.

Though I should point out that the government is terrible at supporting rights. Most things have devolved in to paid privileges or prizes for winning the crotch lottery.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Here are the content notes for "The Most Precious Heritage."

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

These are the location notes for "The Most Precious Heritage."

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Here are the character and location notes for "The Most Precious Heritage."

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

librarygeek,

chanter1944, and

see_also_friend. It also fills the Deep Waters square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony Barrette. It belongs to the Rutledge thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem is mostly fluff about a language nest, but it contains a few intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes refugees, a grandmother raising two grandchildren as the last survivors of their extended family, impact of war on childhood development, family adoption due to child marriage and a deadbeat father, children playacting graphic scenes of war and death, reference to parental death in a car crash, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

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smokingboot

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Page Summary

ysabetwordsmith - Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction
flemmings - (no subject)
ysabetwordsmith - Safety
ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
conuly - So, the way I grew up I'm actually shockingly good at deep cleaning
mallorys_camera - Plotting the Incipient Doom
ysabetwordsmith - Candy Jar Terrarium Part 2: Plants
ysabetwordsmith - Candy Jar Terrarium Part 1: Setup
conuly - I saw a whole family of deer the other day!
summersgate - saturday
thatjustwontbreak - Close to fall, far from grace (August Recap Part 2/2)
ysabetwordsmith - Wildlife
ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
ysabetwordsmith - Safety
mallorys_camera - Love Life
ysabetwordsmith - Philosophical Questions: Rights
ysabetwordsmith - Content notes for "The Most Precious Heritage"
ysabetwordsmith - Location notes for "The Most Precious Heritage"
ysabetwordsmith - Character notes for "The Most Precious Heritage"
ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "The Most Precious Heritage"

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Reading

Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction

(no subject)

Safety

Birdfeeding

So, the way I grew up I'm actually shockingly good at deep cleaning

Plotting the Incipient Doom

Candy Jar Terrarium Part 2: Plants

Candy Jar Terrarium Part 1: Setup

I saw a whole family of deer the other day!

saturday

Close to fall, far from grace (August Recap Part 2/2)

Wildlife

Birdfeeding

Safety

Love Life

Philosophical Questions: Rights

Content notes for "The Most Precious Heritage"

Location notes for "The Most Precious Heritage"

Character notes for "The Most Precious Heritage"

Poem: "The Most Precious Heritage"

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September 2025

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