some things I'm currently doing
Dec. 23rd, 2025 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainwanestarting to read the scifi mystery Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite
making note of the upcoming Grolier Club exhibition on the mechanization of printing: "The Second Printing Revolution: Invention of Mass Media", starting January 14
thinking about whether I could make some use of the new Rx Inspector tool from Pro Publica
spreading word of the Otherwise Award's year-end fundraising campaign to celebrate scifi/fantasy/genre fiction that expands or explores our notions of gender (I'm on the board)
teaching activists how to use Signal features -- usernames, disappearing messages, nicknames, etc. -- to preserve privacy and improve convenience
listening to episodes of KEXP's Runcast (music) and an Australian guy's One Man, One Hammock (rambling monologues) as I do chores
playing an ad hoc guessing game with my spouse where I look up random records on the Guinness world records website and ask him to guess, e.g., how tall the tallest chocolate fountain is
dithering on whether to write a year-end retrospective for my blog
In the bleak midwinter - parakeets!
Dec. 23rd, 2025 03:57 pmoursinHad not been seeing these lately, but over the past few days have been spotting several out of the back windows.
Which is one cheering thing among various niggles and peeves -
Yesterday I was informed that my order from Boots was being delivered, and then got two texts saying they had tried to deliver it but no-one answered. WOT. There was somebody here all the time.
Also a text that my other package (fresh yeast via eBay) had been delivered (this comes through the letterbox) - no sign of this so presume it has gone to the wrong door, and so far nobody has come round to pop it through ours.*
However, at least the Boots parcel turned up today: address label had street number blurred so reasons for mistaking, usual postperson recognised name, possibly yesterday was a seasonal worker?
Other annoyance: Kobo ereader running very sluggish - though this does not seem to apply across all books, which is weird?? Anyway, I connected to wifi in order to update the software, as possibly bearing on the matter, and dash it, it synced a whole load of things I had already downloaded and I have been obliged to clean up the duplicates.
I am, though, grateful that Christmas grocery orders have been nothing missing and no substitutions except for 1 thing which was not at all critical. Also oops, the pudding I ordered was rather smaller than I anticipated, but I feel one can have too much Xmas pud, and there are mince pies, brandy butter, etc.
In further happy news, the Lincolnshire Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has been saved from oil drilling.
^ETA: somebody from 2 doors down brought it round this evening. The address on the package was perfectly clear.
(no subject)
Dec. 23rd, 2025 05:34 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
apod_feed
Yesterday the Sun reached its southernmost point in planet Earth's sky.
The Kraken Wakes?
Dec. 22nd, 2025 08:18 pmoursin2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coast:
The common or Mediterranean octopus, Octopus vulgaris, is native to UK waters but ordinarily in such small numbers it is rarely seen. A sudden increase in the population – a bloom – is caused by a combination of a mild winter followed by a warm breeding season in the spring. The ideal conditions meant that more of the larvae of the common octopus were likely to survive, said Slater, possibly in part fuelled by the large numbers of spider crabs that have also been recorded along the south coast in recent years.
(Oy! Ooo are you callin' octopus vulgaris?)
(We will just note that one of the novels by a certain Lady Anonyma featured Cornish wreckers and Sea Monsters.)
There were also
a record number of grey seals observed by the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, as well as record numbers of puffins on Skomer, an island off the coast of Wales famed for the birds.... the first Capellinia fustifera sea slug in Yorkshire, a 12mm mollusc that resembles a gnarly root vegetable and is usually found in the south-west. In addition, a variable blenny, a Mediterranean fish, was discovered off the coast of Sussex for the first time.
Rather creepier stuff to do with animals (or rather, humans doing creepy things with animals) a little less further westwards: New Forest residents unnerved by man leaving animal carcasses by churches
In shock news, hot yoga is hot
Dec. 22nd, 2025 10:45 amrmc28It was hot in the class. Not sauna hot, but I was definitely finding it harder than I'd expected based on the January classes. I took the teacher at her word about it being fine to take breaks and drink water as needed, but well before the end I just had to stop, sit, and let my heart rate come down. She checked in with me, and I assured her that I know my body and I'm not going to let myself faint, but yes it was harder than I'd expected. I've switched my classes for the next couple of days to the "nurturing flow", so we'll see how that goes.
slightly gross body stuff
My workout clothes were saturated when I finished. I thought I was sweaty after Huskies practice (two hours skating hard, trying to keep up with young men), but this was a new level. Luckily I had a hoodie and skirt to throw over the top for the bike ride home - it's a weirdly mild December week but not so mild I wanted evaporative cooling all the way. Absolutely everything went in the wash when I got home.
I emptied my 950ml water bottle in/just after the practice, and had another couple of litres of water over the course of the evening, this time with my trusty electrolyte tablets, and managed to see off the lurking dehydration headache. I'm going to make sure there's electrolytes in the in-class bottle too from tonight onward.
Do images also get redirected when using a rename token?
Dec. 22nd, 2025 10:10 amvriddy posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
getting_startedDo image links also get redirected automatically ? Or do you need to update your old posts referencing those images, since the username is in the URL too??
(no subject)
Dec. 22nd, 2025 06:06 amapod_feed
Can you tell that today is a solstice by the tilt of the Earth?
Culinary
Dec. 21st, 2025 08:01 pmoursinThis week's bread: a loaf of Bacheldre Rustic Country Bread Flour, quite nice, but not as nice as Dove's Farm Seedhouse.
Friday night supper: ersatz Thai fried rice with chorizo di navarra.
Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones based on James Beard's mother's raisin bread, 50/50% Marriages Golden Wholegrain (end of bag) and Strong Brown Flour, quite nice.
Today's lunch: lamb chops which I cooked thusly, except that as I had no small bottles of white wine I used red, turned out very well; served with Greek spinach rice and padron peppers.
Solstice
Dec. 21st, 2025 02:22 pmrmc28Sunrise at 08:07
Sunset at 15:49
On this shortest day of the year, Nico and I went to Clip-n-Climb first thing, cycling there and back together through a heavily overcast but weirdly mild December day. We did a little Co-op run on the way home, and then I unpacked the hire car before returning it. I decided against buses or scooters and walked the hour or so back home, including a little diversion to collect a yoga towel from Decathlon. If all goes to plan, I will cycle to hot yoga this evening in the dark (and quite probably the rain) for the first of my "festive pass" sessions.
(I mean it about being weirdly mild: both cycling and walking I had to take my hoodie off because I was too hot.)
Technically I started the 21st of December still awake at midnight, and watching the first couple of episodes of Shoresy, a Canadian comedy TV show about ice hockey, on a friend's recommendation. (Same director/executive producer as Heated Rivalry although I didn't realise that until after I'd started watching.) Very crude, very funny.
Ice hockey, climbing, walking outdoors, yoga. Spending time with my offspring, thinking of my friends, and taking care of myself. If this is a turning day of the year, it's a good set of things to mark it.
Strictly we are not yet into the "mellandagarna", the in-between days of Christmas-to-New-Year. I'm still working until lunchtime on Wednesday, but a lot of the usual rhythms of my life and my household are paused now. School's out, hockey practice is out, everything has "holiday opening hours" listed and I'm feeling a bit unmoored. (Being ill most of the last fortnight probably hasn't helped.) My yoga pass is part of my attempt to put a little structure on the downtime.
Oooh, maybe this journal is functional again??
Dec. 20th, 2025 04:32 pmravenna_c_tanI think everything's fully functional again, which means I can go and friend folks again, and trim out some of the deleted journals from my list and replace them with more active folks.
I've also still got my ceciliatan account, but it was never as active, so I'm going to keep the action over here.
I had stopped posting my monthly newsletter to my blogs in addition to putting it up on Patreon and Mailchimp, but maybe I should start again...