Reading

Entry tags:

monday later

Pennies From Heaven.

We went to downtown Bradenton this morning so Kathy could go to a meeting at the library. I walked the River Walk. A city park that runs beside the Manatee River with a paved pathway that goes a couple miles. A beautiful warm morning, breezy, not hot, though it did get hot later today.

Sitting in the backyard at the moment. A cicada in the live oak tree above me just now started. This is the first one I have heard here. Incredible! The volume of sound. I think there are 2 but they blend together. And maybe another has now joined in. They seem louder here than anything I've ever experienced up north.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is partly sunny and sweltering.

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

I put out water for the birds.

.

Entry tags:

movies,
politics

Satori

As the Charlie Kirk thing took over the headlines, the Republican-led Senate voted on whether or not to set aside the budget amendment that would have compelled the Department of Justice to release Epstein files.

They voted 51-49 to set it aside.

The suspense, right? Who woulda guessed it?

###

When I'm Remunerating, I park myself in front of my computer, and when I get bored, I delve into social media in quick spurts as a—ha, ha, ha—palate cleanser.

Except it really is a palate defiler, something calculated to leave a really bad taste in your mouth, because man, the people on both sides are fuckin' insane.

The right wing is trying to make a dam-breaking moment out of Kirk's death. Spinning a left-wing narrative out of what is essentially an age-old story: 22-year-old punk lashing out against a restrictive (in his case Mormon Republican) upbringing.

The left wing is slithering like a snake with its head cut off.

I'm tempted to check out of activism altogether except I don't want to lack conviction while the worst are filling up with tasty passionate intensity.

###

I watched Mel Brooks' The Producers last night. It remains one of the most hilarious films I've ever seen, though I daresay very few progressive leftists would agree.

One of the (many) things I dislike about the progressive left is its utter humorlessness. Maybe that's a good thing? You have to be a bit of a hypocrite to get humor because you have to understand about duality. That's probably why on the whole, hypocritical right-wingers are funnier than left-wingers.

Yes, you should make jokes about racism, sexism, every societal injustice.

Because getting a joke is akin to the concept of satori in Japanese Buddhism when for one brief moment, you see the absurdity and you see the profundity fused like yin & yang.

And in the spirit of that moment, I bring you Springtime for Hitler:

Watch on YouTube

Entry tags:

monday

Watch on YouTube

Good morning. This is where I like to sit on the porch in the morning when I'm at Kathy's house. We imagine that Pete is visiting us in the dancing lights from the mirror curtains. Like the sparkles in the snow from that funeral poem.

The plane trip yesterday was good. Kathy has a gallery meeting this morning and I'm going to walk by the river while she's there. Later, lunch at the Thai Palace restaurant.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Writing

Six “Weak” Fantasy Powers That Are Incredibly Strong

These are powers that are considered minor, some interesting flavor at best, but actually provide a huge advantage. The only question is whether storytellers realize it.

It's not the amount of power in an ability, but rather your creativity in using it that matters.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

blogging,
personal

Monday Update 9-15-25

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction
Birdfeeding
Candy Jar Terrarium Part 2: Plants
Candy Jar Terrarium Part 1: Setup
Wildlife
Birdfeeding
Safety
Philosophical Questions: Rights
Poem: "The Most Precious Heritage"
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Low-Carb Meatloaf Recipes
Follow Friday 9-12-25: Iron Man
Sustainability
Recipe: "Edwards Family Meatloaf"
Poem: "But an Empty Shell"
Birdfeeding
Hobbies: Knitting
Today's Adventures
Music
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party

Let's Boycott Mississippi has 55 comments. Affordable Housing has 46 comments. Robotics has 68 comments. Food has 37 comments.

"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv and needs $200 to be complete. Shiv attends the first session of his Worldbuilding class.

The weather is sweltering again. :P Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a male cardinal, and a fox squirrel. Lots of butterflies are out, and honeybees are draining the small metal birdbath. Currently blooming: dandelions, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant, firewheel, cypress vine, sunchokes, sedum. Tomatoes, ball carrots, cucumbers, and groundcherries are ripe.

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction

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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Entry tags:

film,
music

(no subject)

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.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Safety

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

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

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.

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

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?

Entry tags:

Plotting the Incipient Doom

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.

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

Candy Jar Terrarium Part 2: Plants

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

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Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

Candy Jar Terrarium Part 1: Setup

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

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I saw a whole family of deer the other day!

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.

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

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Entry tags:

saturday

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.

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

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

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: busy

Entry tags:

news,
wildlife

Wildlife

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

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

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

Entry tags:

networking,
safety

Safety

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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