ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the February 2025 [community profile] crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "Experimentation" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Read more... )
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
In August 2024, I got a heat pump and switched my heat source from gas to electric.

PG&E has an arcane cost structure where not only do they charge more for electricity between certain hours (4-9pm for my rate plan) but they also have a baseline allowance and charge significantly more for usage over baseline. Neither the contractor nor my neighbor with a heat pump advised me that I needed to call PG&E and tell them I had changed heat sources to change my baselines, so I overpaid a lot for electricity last winter.

I was aware that I was paying a lot even though the heat pump wasn't maintaining temperature. I asked the contractor. I asked my neighbor. Neither mentioned the baseline amounts.

PG&E sent me a message earlier this fall saying I might pay less on a different rate plan, and when I called them (Oct 9, for my records), I found out about notifying them I now had electric heat. One agent told me the was refundable as much as 3 years retroactively, but it turns out he was blowing smoke, and it isn't. :-(

The new rate plan is even more complicated and I still had a really high bill this month despite not keeping the place very warm (and I have double pane windows and everything!), so I spent a long time on the phone with an agent today digging into the numbers and figured out the new rate plan is actually slightly more expensive than just having the right baseline amount, so I'm switching back.

*sigh*. I guess some lessons are just expensive. Looks like they instituted this whole baseline thing right around when I moved back in May 2022, which explains why I wasn't aware of it before, and maybe I missed both the existing customer education and the new customer education.

Last year's missing baseline credits )

I'm continuing to send updates to the contractor who installed the heat pump system, which is under warranty for 3 years. At the end of last winter, he replaced the thermostat, and a control board in the downstairs indoor unit where he cut a jumper that it didn't make sense to cut. Now he says he's going to replace the whole indoor unit, and install one that's more powerful. It's supposed to arrive early-mid January. We'll see if that fixes the problem. He will also have to replace all the coolant, so if he had the wrong amount in there, that will also fix that problem. I suppose if that doesn't help then he replaces the outdoor unit. One step at a time...
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem came out of the February 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] mama_kestrel and [personal profile] see_also_friend. It also fills the "Violent Behavior" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] gothfvck and [personal profile] see_also_friend. It also fills the "Resist Oppression" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

Read more... )
shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Taking tomorrow and Friday off, and get Xmas Day off of course - it's a Federal and State Holiday in the US.

Happy to have the break at last - work has become infuriatingly tedious of late. Needless to say, I'm burnt out, and desperately need a break from all of it. Also the commute is playing havoc with my right knee, and I've been sleeping poorly as a result.

I hope to do knee exercises, and maybe get some watercolors and writing done. Lately, I've become addicted to Royal Match on my phone. Only one problem with it? It costs money - or I get tempted to expend small amounts for more tries. I need to find a game with no costs and no ads. The Majhong game's pop up ads kept freezing the game and my Iphone. See? This is why I'm not much of a gamer. I should try the board game link.

Pondering Buffy S5 and Angel S2 today - and in my rewatch, I picked up something that in hindsight, is relatively obvious. It's a television trope that I've actually seen a lot since Buffy/Angel aired, but not as much prior. I think the series may have influenced a lot of writers to play with it. What it is - is the bait and switch, or mislead the audience into thinking this is going to happen, but do something else entirely. Otherwise known as the hairpin plot twist. It's hard to pull off well, without annoying the audience. The writers of Buffy and Angel tried to pull it off in just about every episode of the series and in the seasonal arcs.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Like I said - it's hard to pull off.
Read more... )

I keep writing about this because I can't figure out how to articulate my thoughts on it. And keep thinking, perhaps erroneously, that writing it out will help.

**

Working my way through Angelica Huston's Memoir - which I keep forgetting the name of. Ah found it - A Story Lately Told - Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York. It's well written and narrated. Listening to it on audible.

Gave up on "Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem" and went back to T Kingfisher's novel "What Moves the Dead". I like Kingfisher's writing style (possibly because it's very close to my own and I don't have to work that hard to read it? I've learned recently that reading a writing style that is close to my own style is easier for me to process, than one that is alien to it - or very different from it. Because of what I do for a living, and the amount of legal and technical reading I do - I have a tendency to skim formal writing, and disconnect from it. The more formal it is - the less likely I will be able to remember what I've read, without re-reading it five or six times.) It has a lot to do with dyslexia - I think? Formal writing has a tendency to make my eyes glaze over, and my focus shift away from the text.

Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem - has a formal writing style - in that the writer is trying to copy a formal British style of writing, most likely from the Victorian period. While I respect this choice? I wish they wouldn't. It makes it hard for me to stay focused on their story.

I can actually write in more than one style. I've been trained to do so, and can shift on a whim. I often do in these posts. I just prefer the casual or conversational writing style - it's easier for me to write in and to read. YMMV. People don't process information the same way or read the same way.

***

Off to bed, and hopefully to sleep. I need sleep. Been averaging 5 and a half hours the last couple of nights.

Fruitcake

Dec. 23rd, 2025 16:12
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
Here is a holiday recipe for you!
This fruitcake is incredibly rich and yummy. I got it from my Mom, who undoubtedly clipped it out of a newspaper or farm magazine. I note that it is up on Cooks.com these days.

California Fruitcake

3/4 Cup Flour We always used all purpose white flour.
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Soda
1 tsp Salt
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar Pack tightly into measuring cup.
1 1/2 Lbs Pitted Dates Mom used brown Medjool Dates common to Calif. I like to cut them in half.
1 1/2 to 2 Cup Dried Apricots Cut into halves or quarters. Pack tightly in measuring cup.
3 Cup Nut Meats (Walnut halves) in large pieces.
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla

Mix all dry ingredients.
Add to fruit, coat fruit thoroughly with flour mix.
Beat eggs until foamy, add vanilla.
Pour Egg mix over dry ingredients & fruit. Gently stir in.
Line loaf pan (bread loaf pan) with wax paper or parchment paper.
Pack pan with mix.
Bake at 300 degrees 1 hour and 20 min.
Put small pan of water in oven with the fruitcakes while baking to help keep it moist.
When cool, wrap with tinfoil and store in a dark cool place for 4 to 6 weeks to blend flavors. Or eat immediately.
Storing give a much richer flavor. We tried it soaked in rum once, and never again. The flavors of this fruitcake are so rich that the alcohol dulled and muddied the taste.
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
Not all audio in this group, though in part because three of them don't exist in audio (as far as I know).

You're the Problem, It's You by Emma R. Alban -- (audio) This is the same author as Don't Want You Like a Best Friend, and in fact this book is in the same continuity, with characters from the earlier book showing up in this one. M/M historic romance. Honestly, the things that bothered me about the previous book continued to be annoying in this one. The characters are modern teenagers dressed up in costume. The social dynamics, conversation, and language in general are intrusively contemporary. On top of that I didn't find the plot interesting and the final twist was obvious from a mile away. That said, the writing is technically competent, and if you like your historicals to be modern teenagers in cosplay, you might enjoy it.

The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo -- (audio) Part of the Singing Hills cycle, in which cleric Chi wanders around collecting stories with their sentient hoopoe bird. This one partakes strongly of horror elements. The climactic twist wasn't a surprise to me, though the details weren't obvious earlier. Quite solid, although not my favorite book in the series.

A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland -- (audio) Lovely writing! This is a not-revealed-until-very-late-but-obvious-if-you-know-the-tropes selkie story. F/f romance. The plot is both sweet and menacing, though the protagonist has a few "are you really that dense?" moments. Content notes for animal death and for main character peril but a happy ending.

Harvest Season by Annick Trent -- (print) I have loved everything I've read by Trent and should really track down the works of hers that I haven't read yet. Historic f/f romance short story. Sometime lovers get involved in labor activism for the weavers and find their chance to be together when they need to flee the law. The history feels very solid and the writing is gorgeous.

The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3) by Tasha Suri -- (audio) I had so very many thoughts when reading this, but my notes just say "very satisfying ending" (to the series). Alt-India. High politics, warfare, magic, and creeping infiltration by an alien presence whose goals are extremely different from what any of the humans might want. It gradually becomes apparent that this is a science fiction setting rather than a fantasy setting, without dropping any of the trappings of high fantasy. There has been a f/f romance thread throughout the series, with the pair alternating between lovers and deadly enemies. The romance wraps up in a much more satisfactory way than previous events led one to believe was possible. I loved loved loved this series.

I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Connor -- (graphic novel) I was charmed this graphic novel taking a queer twist on Jane Austen's Emma, which presents the Knightley character as a transmasculine age-mate to Emma and gives Emma a cousin who is mixed race and becomes the primary focus of Emma’s misdirected match-making. Much of the plot involves the Knightley character coming to terms and acceptance with their gender identity and Emma recognizing her romantic attraction to them. While the cast changes take the plot in some new directions, there are also parts where the story follows the beats of Austen’s original rather strongly.

Masters in this Hall by K.J. Charles -- (print) M/m historic romance. A short caper-style adventure involving characters related to the "Lily-White Boys" series, which ties in various characters seen in that continuity. Clever.

Bold Privateer by Jeannelle M. Ferreira -- (audio) Short f/f historic romantic adventure, written in Ferreira's usual poetic/impressionistic style. There is violence but no tragedy. This appears to involve characters related in some way to the protagonists of The Covert Captain, but who receive only a brief passing reference in that book.

A Ruse of Shadows (Lady Sherlock #8) by Sherry Thomas -- (audio) One of the things I've enjoyed about this Sherlock-Holmes-is-a-woman mystery/adventure series is how the non-linear presentation and severely unreliable viewpoints keep you guessing...and then you want to read it all again immediately to see how it fits together. Unfortunately I just wasn't feeling it in this one. The non-linearity shifted into incoherence I kept losing the plot (and I normally love that sort of thing).

The Duke's Sister and I by Emma-Claire Sunday -- (audio) I don't know what it is with so many of the current crop of sapphic historicals from major publishers being so...so MEH. The plot is generic and there isn't enough of it, the characters spend too much time angsting over their relationships, and it's only tenuously grounded in its alleged historic setting. It's not exactly *bad*, it just isn't *good*.

And that finishes up the 2024 reads. Only another whole year to go!

Reading Pleasures of 2025

Dec. 23rd, 2025 13:27
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
[personal profile] gwynnega
It's that time again: my reading roundup at the Aqueduct Press blog. I talk about some of the books I enjoyed reading this year, including titles by Charlie Jane Anders, John Wiswell, Nisi Shawl, Amal El-Mohtar, Maggie Nelson, and more.

We're currently awaiting a massive rainstorm in Southern California. Hoping my windows don't leak and the power stays on.

Tuesday word: Reindeer

Dec. 23rd, 2025 12:44
simplyn2deep: (Hawaii Five 0::Christmas)
[personal profile] simplyn2deep posting in [community profile] 1word1day
Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Reindeer (noun)
rein·deer [reyn-deer]


noun
1. any of several large deer of the genus Rangifer, of northern and arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, both male and female of which have antlers.

Compare meaning
How does reindeer compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

reindeer vs. deer
caribou vs. reindeer

Origin: First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English raynder(e), from Old Norse hreindȳri, equivalent to hreinn “reindeer” + dȳr “animal” (cognate with deer )

Example Sentences
It's also got a proper tree with decorations, there's a Rudolf reindeer toy and they've put some thought into all the splashes of red.
From BBC

"The trip meant so much to us. Leighton loved Lapland and enjoyed all the activities like visiting Santa's post office, Mrs Claus' house and seeing the reindeer," he added.
From BBC

Animal activists are calling for a ban on live reindeer events this Christmas, claiming their evidence shows serious welfare concerns.
From BBC

Let the reindeer chow cool before serving — or packing.
From Salon

A sign states that “Santa is feeding the reindeer.”
From Los Angeles Times

(no subject)

Dec. 24th, 2025 11:59
bitterlawngnome: (Default)
[personal profile] bitterlawngnome
Irises from the garden, 2025. "NOID" means "no ID", that is to say, I don't know their names. The noids in this group are all three in the street island garden and were there when I inherited it; the one identified as 'Benton Deirdre' is tentative - I decided it is that based on a combination of appearance and the recent trendiness of the Benton irises. The unnamed Pacific Coast hybrid was a random seedling child of random seedlings. The name and date in brackets is the breeder and the date of the cultivar's registration or introduction to commerce.

white falls, dull gold flags, both veined with maroon
Iris Miniature Tall Bearded 'In My Veins' (Charles Bunnell, 2008) 4957
©Bill Pusztai 2025



Not far from species - pale blue-purple falls and flags, white runway with gold eye
Iris Pacific Coast hybrid 4919.
©Bill Pusztai 2025



An indefinite gold / beige / brown with striking purple and orange beard
Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Dragon's Den' (Chuck Chapman, 2002) 5231
©Bill Pusztai 2025



An indefinite gold / beige / brown with striking purple and orange beard
Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Dragon's Den' (Chuck Chapman, 2002) 5335
©Bill Pusztai 2025



very nearly orange butterscoithch falls and flags, bright ornage beard
Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Eramosa OJ' (Chuck Chapman, 2014) 9093
©Bill Pusztai 2025



very nearly orange butterscoithch falls and flags, bright ornage beard
Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Eramosa OJ' (Chuck Chapman, 2014) 9119
©Bill Pusztai 2025



white falls with deep purple dots and veining in edge, pink flags with more purple dots and veining, yellow beard ... ID is approximate
Iris Tall Bearded Benton 'Deirdre' (Sir Cedric Morris, R. 1946) 1472
©Bill Pusztai 2025



An unusually elongated antique-style blue-purple, dark falls and pale flags, yellow beard
Iris Tall Bearded noid blue 1460
©Bill Pusztai 2025



antique-style blue-purple, dark falls and pale flags, yellow beard
Iris Tall Bearded noid blue
©Bill Pusztai 2025



antique style simple bloom with deep wine-red falls, yellow beard and throat, pale violet flags
Iris Tall Bearded noid variegata 4361
©Bill Pusztai 2025



Deep wine red modern hybrid, this one spotted with raindrops
Iris Tall Bearded 'War Chief' (Schreiner 1992) 4168
©Bill Pusztai 2025



Deep wine red modern hybrid, this one showing blueish sheen
Iris Tall Bearded 'War Chief' (Schreiner, 1992) 4230
©Bill Pusztai 2025

End of year meme

Dec. 23rd, 2025 19:46
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I started introducing it this way in 2023:

The questions here sometimes feel random and sometimes aren't very relevant to me (how many one-night stands, bless; that feels like such a fossil of the height-of-LJ days when I first encountered this meme), but I do like it as a way to think a bit differently than I normally do about my life, and some things that had a big impact on me (like what a dog-hospital year it was for Gary) barely show up here. I do find myself at random points through the year noting things I do that I haven't done before, or wondering what my musical discovery might be, or whatever.

So here we go for 2025

1. What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before?:
Wrote an extensive as the writer and basically project lead on a report at work -- never did this before, did it three times in a row this year. Met a person from the internet and ended up having sex with them the same day. (Sorry if this is tmi, there will be no more details about it.)

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?:
I didn't call it a resolution but when asked later about what I'd like to have this year that I lacked the previous one, I said

Another sexual and/or romantic partner? This feels impossible but so do the last four years' worth of things and they all happened!

Like three days after I wrote this I started talking to somoene on the social media site that's basically a kinky version of Facebook which, like regular Facebook, you can only access if you have an account and I was getting memes and events linked to by a friend until I got fed up and made an account. Six months later, I got a random message from someone who wrote a comment that I'd "liked" (as with Facebook, it tells you when people like your shit and then you can go look at their profile and all that) and in August I met him and it was fun to have a no-strings arrangement with a friend.

Will I make more for next year? I'm not sure, I think the coming year is more about keeping what I have stable: work, house, relationships, friendships, life....

+47 )

50. What are your plans for 2026?
Laat year I wrote

Try to help everyone survive it with as much comfort and joy as we can manage, especially in the U.S. but everywhere really.

And I don't think I can improve on that answer either.

In a lot of ways it's been a rough year: the quick and steep decline of human rights in the U.S. has been hard to watch and harder to be affected by so personally. Work has been so difficult. I've had such a miserable experience trying to get referred for top surgery -- in the process bringing up so much medical fatphobia that I haven't even blogged about the whole saga, I can barely even think about it without panic or tears. Even my escapist hobby of MLB has been reminding me that billionaires feel

But in other ways it has also been a good year: it was really nice to be able to provide a safe landing place for [personal profile] angelofthenorth and Mr Smith, it was nice to get through a November without anything (new) and terrible happening. Connections with the local queers have been deepened and I'm delighted that D and I are now on the small committee of people who've taken over from the two founders who have reasonably been able to step back and enjoy the thing they made as the ordinary attendees the rest of us have gotten to be the last two years.

rebeccmeister: (Default)
[personal profile] rebeccmeister
Today has mostly been wrap-up / prep tasks at work: get more cricket paper ready, water the ants, feed the horseshoe crab, et cetera.

At one point while I was in high school, a big exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks toured our town. I mostly recall that we had several events at school ahead of going to visit the exhibit, to somehow prepare us for it all. I mean, I guess otherwise we would have just looked at the pages and not really known what to make of them. As it stood, my memory is that I looked at the pages and didn't really know what to make of them. I mean, I understand that they have interesting elements to them, what with the writing everything backwards and the intriguing notions about how things work and about contraptions. But, then what?

Can you imagine being someone whose notebooks became so famous after death?

Anything I've ever written down has been scattered across such a wide range of different notebooks that there's no coherence to any of them, really, nor am I any sort of Renaissance artistic genius, heh. I mean, the most coherent ones are the lab notebooks, because I *do* try and uphold certain standards with those.

But is anyone going to try and read any of those? No, they are not. What's the point?

It's hard to remember sometimes that historically, access to paper and writing implements was quite limited.

Anyway, I should go home early and work on packing. FWIW I'm headed to the Seattle area for about a week, then to Portland for a conference.

Birdfeeding

Dec. 23rd, 2025 13:30
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is sunny and cool, almost warm -- too warm for a jacket even.  That's warmer than even the January thaw used to get.

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

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I filled the trolley twice with twigs from the parking lot brushpile, then dumped them in the firepit in the ritual meadow.

I saw a flock of mourning doves in the trees around the ritual meadow.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.

I've seen a fox squirrel running through the trees.  I heard a woodpecker but didn't see it.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.  I think I've actually removed all the ones with berries that I want to burn, so the rest should be free for other uses.

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

Plz vote!

Dec. 23rd, 2025 10:25
halfshellvenus: (Default)
[personal profile] halfshellvenus
This is the last day to vote in this week's Idol poll. Only the top 3 writers advance, and I could really use your help. Thank you for your support all of these past months!

We're nearing the end of the year, and I've been looking at my Goodreads stats. Last year, I didn't make my goal (I think it was 70 books? It was ambitious). This year, I backed it down to 60. But! I seem to have read a lot of longer standalone short stories and some unexpected novelettes. So, I'll easily make 85-86 "books." I got in a few extra while we were in Hawaii (I always read more on vacation), but I've increased my reading time each day by pairing it with foot exercises for the plantar fasciitis that returned with a vengeance in May. That has definitely helped.

I'm currently reading the second book in the 2 Sisters Detective Agency series (and hoping there will be more at some point). But I recently finished The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, which was fun. It involves a school for magical creatures, or those who can do magic, and is told from the POV of one of the parents who is dealing with petty social circles and politics in an atypical setting. At some point, I'll read the fourth book in T. L. Huchu's series that starts with The Library Of The Dead. It will tank my stats— those books are gripping, but on the long side. I'm pleased to see that there's a fifth one now!

How's the holiday prep coming? I've wrapped most of the presents, but I'm afraid to put them (and their curly ribbons) under the tree. See yesterday's post...

TV Tuesday: Changing Eras

Dec. 23rd, 2025 10:02
yourlibrarian: Horario Under Hat look (HORN-HorarioUnderHat-timescout)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian posting in [community profile] tv_talk

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk



Are there things you miss about TV technologies gone by? What about things you definitely don’t?

Alternately, how meaningful is the term "TV" these days given the changes in both method and content?

This And That

Dec. 23rd, 2025 11:38
poliphilo: (Default)
[personal profile] poliphilo
 The dream recorded in the last post seems to be saying, "Move over, Grandad. Let the younger generation take over." Something, as it happens, I'm very happy to do.

YouTube is sending me lots of little filmlets dedicated to the proposition that the President of the USA is an arse. Well, I've known that for years- so I mostly ignore them. I wonder whether if I were Maga I'd be getting lots of little filmlets telling me how he's the greatest President ever....

The day before the day before Christmas is mild and grey. Mike and Su and Sej are visiting this afternoon and staying overnight. Our cleaner is down with the flu so the house isn't as shiny as I'd like it to be. 

I've been blowing up inflatable reindeer antlers and inflatable rings. They're for a game of seasonal hoopla. You put the antlers on your head and people try to throw the rings onto the tines. Here's Ailz modelling the look. 

IMG_8744.jpeg

(no subject)

Dec. 23rd, 2025 10:18
smokingboot: (Default)
[personal profile] smokingboot
Happy Birthday Dad X

Last Night's Dream

Dec. 23rd, 2025 08:16
poliphilo: (Default)
[personal profile] poliphilo
 Last night's dream:

A young boy is behind the wheel of the car and I'm in the passenger seat. I let him move the car forward a few feet.

"That's enough" I say.

Then I'm driving.

But  I have to go very slowly and carefully because the lane is crowded with children walking home from school....

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bill_schubert

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