lookfar2

$radiantfracture: A yellow die with a spiral face floats on a red background, emitting glitter (New RPG icon)$

Perhaps in celebration of the National Theatre at Home production, The Daily Spell has switched from telling an original fantasy story to encoding quotations from The Importance of Being Earnest.

I wasn't sure about the change, but there is something satisfying in teasing out the familiar lines, and it isn't any more difficult, if you are familiar with Wilde's cadences or his epigrams.

§rf§

greghousesgf

Last night when I was trying to watch CSI New York on Roku every time this one interactive McDonald's ad came on the ep would reset back to the beginning and apparently the only way I can come close to watching it normally is to fast forward to a point after the damn ad. It yaps about kids voting and has some really irritating sort of anime looking characters in it. I can't stand McDonald's anyway, their food is gross.
Then this morning I accidentally locked myself out of my apt. I felt like a total fool. I could only find the one maintenance guy who speaks zero English so he didn't know what I wanted, it took me a while to find any of the managers.
Then when I went to pay the rent I realized there's bigger fools than me running this place. I always ask for a rent receipt. They gave me one with somebody else's name and check copy on it. I was all "this isn't my check" and they seemed to think it was no big deal!
I hung out down by the lake for a while. Good thing I wore a jacket because the weather was cold and rather wet. I'm super tired now.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Albert King

days_unfolding

The cherry trees at the U of I Arboretum are in bloom. I should stop by to see them.

Woke up at 7:30 AM. Got myself together in plenty of time for my appointment. It’s raining.

My physical therapy appointment went well. They’re good; they identified weakness in my hips and glutes as contributing to my knee problems. We did some exercises, and my muscles are twinging. They scheduled me for weekly appointments for six weeks. I need to subscribe to the exercise videos (Lifelong Mobility) that I found as well. Use it or lose it.

Damn, I’m tired. My 1:00 meeting was canceled, so I’ll have time for a nap! Excellent! But the dogs are wrestling, sigh. I’m calling Bella Miss Pushy Dog because she wants pets All The Time. Gracie scratched my face and drew blood 🙁

I received my planters with legs for the vegetable garden. I got the confusion about my login for free mulch straightened out (apparently I signed up twice with different email addresses), but I need to buy a wheelbarrow first. The one that I wanted already sold, so I’ll need to spend more. I need to go get cash to buy one from Facebook Marketplace. But will I be able to lift it? Maybe I’ll have to have one delivered from Home Depot. Ace Hardware had a cheaper one but with a larger delivery fee, so I ordered one from Home Depot plus a “transfer shovel”.

Bella came inside at 3:30 PM. Gracie is still out there. (I let them out late due to my appointment and the delivery of the planters.) Gracie came in at 4:30.

I ordered a (used) book of neck, shoulders, and back stretches/exercises.

I forgot that I need to straighten out some financial stuff with Lessonface before I can take my piano class. But I’m going to take a nap first if the dogs will let me. I have a headache. No, my piano teacher said that I was on the roster, so I attended piano class. I guess they resubmitted the charge.

Ate dinner while watching The Pitt. Looked at some AI instructions for developing hand independence for piano.

The dogs came in on the first try and I fed them. I need to give the cats their crunchies. I’m really tired, so I want to go to bed soon.

glacier_kitty

A love story that defies social boundaries: The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (Feb 26-Mar 19). Since the bookstore isn't doing bookclub anymore, a few of us decided to continue ourselves, and this was the last book we read. It was wholesome and squishy haha, the kids were so fun! We're going to read the next one (Somewhere Beyond the Sea) in May since we liked the first one

A book that makes you feel FOMO: Pouncing on Murder by Laurie Cass (Feb 27-Mar 4). I feel like I'm missing out on the beauty of Michigan when I read this series, the author describes it so well! Eddie the cat in the book says "mrr," and I've caught Curti saying the same thing haha

A book where gardening or a garden is central to the plot: This Little Kitty in the Garden by Karen Obuhanych (Mar 5). Such lovely illustrations!

A book with a "type C" character: The Body in the Bookstore by Ellie Alexander (Mar 7-10). Detail-oriented, methodical, and analytical individuals who thrive on logic, structure, and precision..yep, those are the traits of many people who work at bookstores. Agatha Christie was mentioned throughout the book, like The Mysterious Affair at Styles being the first Poirot book, and a couple days later I got to use that trivia at work..Danae was like "I love that you just know that off the top of your head" haha

A book you meant to read in 2025: My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me by Caleb Carr (Mar 11-17). He bonded with Masha kind of like how I bonded with Abby. The love of a cat is so special <3

A book you were hoping would fit into a prompt but doesn't: Cat with a Clue by Laurie Cass (Mar 18-24). Minnie the Librarian comes across way too many dead bodies than is realistic, but at least the series is entertaining :P

A book that takes place during harvesting season: Wrong Side of the Paw by Laurie Cass (Mar 25-29). Oof, definitely the worst in the series..it didn't have the same vibe as the others and Eddie wasn't in this book as much as the others. They're getting repetitive too, so I should probably take a break from them..

( the topics )

Here's what the National Weather Service said yesterday: "Fairbanks, we just lived through the history books. The numbers are in, and the December to March 2025-26 season will go down as the all-time record coldest for Fairbanks since records began in 1904. With an average temperature of -13.6°F, we’ve edged out the legendary winter of 1965-66 to take the #1 spot.

Persistence: 150 consecutive days and counting at or below freezing, marking the longest stretch the Interior has seen since the early 1970s.

Extreme Cold: We saw 31 days at or below -40°F, the fourth-highest count on record and the most since 1965. Additionally, 72 days reached at or below -20°F, and 52 days fell to at or below -30°F, with 66 days not even getting above 0°F."

Last March was also the coldest in recorded history..the average temperature was -9, obliterating the previous record of -6 in 1959. That was definitely a crazy winter!! Someone on Facebook said this was their first winter, and they feel like they have superpowers haha! Next week it's supposed to get into the 40s!! We earned that warm weather :P

30. How are you feeling today? Yesterday was alright..still getting cool books at work!

31. What is your favorite thing about mornings right now? Reading in bed, cleaning/shelving books, eating yummy vanilla cake haha

April 1: What are some things that you've bought recently? Books, food, an April bus pass, etc

dark_phoenix54 posting in

booknook

I've actually got books to report for Wednesday! The reading part of my brain has finally kicked back in!

The Republic of Love, by Carol Shields

Took me almost a week to read this. Not because it's difficult reading- it's actually well written- but I just couldn't care about any of the characters! It's all about various people's love lives, mainly focusing on a couple who have previously had fairly disastrous affairs/marriages.

Dead As a Doornail, by Charlaine Harris

One of the Sookie Stackhouse series; not sure where in the series this one sits, since I haven't read any of the others. It held my interest, and was a fast read- two days. A very complicated tale with about a million characters that gave me some problem trying to remember who they all were, and whether they were vampires or were people or just humans. And I did have a bit of a problem with the way every single hetero male wanted her sexually- kind of reminded me of the Anita Blake books but NOT to the extreme those are taken. (note: I have no problem with sex in books. It's the fact that there is this one woman who every single man MUST have. Give it a rest.) Anyway, if the library has the rest of this series I'll read it at some point.

And, maybe a quarter through:

A Spy for the Redeemer: An Owen Archer Mystery, by Candace Robb

Set in 1370, Owen is coming back from Wales (where he was born) from a pilgrimage to some sacred sites, but gets side tracked by a murder mystery he's obliged to investigate. Meanwhile, his wife, an apothecary, is being accused of murder herself...
So far, so good. Good detail as to how things are done back then. Strong main characters- so far, I really like the Lucie a little better than Owen, but I suspect he'll get more interesting as the story evolves.

dewline

I did NOT know how much I needed to see something like the Artemis launch until I did.

Current Mood: ecstatic

flemmings

Yesterday was a total washout, literally. Monday night was a nuit blanche interrupted by rolling thunderstorms, so I read until 4 and slept in to headachy noon. It continued to storm and deluge all day and especially into the evening, as the temps dropped from Monday's muggy 20C to something more seasonable overnight. Had the heat on when I went to bed because we were hitting 4C by morning. Today, well, got up to Loblaws for milk and such, bundled up garbage for tomorrow's pickup, and made zucchini fritters. I'd grated the zucchini and potatoes yesterday with my *extremely* achy elbows-- apparently pressure changes and damp are registered in the arms now-- and tried to squeeze out the moisture through the cheesecloth I bought on the weekend. Discover that kitchen scissors and nail scissors will not cut cheesecloth. Shoved the mixture into a tupperware and had something else for dinner. Today I used a linen tea towel and that worked fine, but the carrot I was going to add had gone rubbery unpeelable and ungratable. Tossed that, added soupçon of flour and egg to the mix, and fried them up. Passable, but if I ever do this again will definitely add onion. And maybe baking soda like they say, to make the things lighter.

Have had a Dr Priestley on the go since forever and still not finished it. I want country house murders and this is about a syndicate that steals stuff. Finished Cabell's The High Place, wondering why I still read Cabell and his extremely unlikeable protagonists, a murderer in this case, as well as a horndog like *every last one of his male characters.* There's a name for why I'm doing it, which I suspect is masochism. 'My critics think I am an enemy to marriage,' James whines. 'As a married man, I take exception to this.' Yeah well, all the guys you write can't stand their wives and go around having it off with any nubile thing available, so no wonder. I need to stop reading male authors, is what.

lycomingst

I started a rewatch of my dvds, slowly, ever so slowly. I finished Angel, Arrested Development. I'm afraid the magic of Black Adder has faded for me and I will be passing that on, somewhere. Next up is Season 4 of Blue Murder, a Brit police show, a dvd I acquired I don't remember how.

Because it's Poetry month.

Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX)
Edna St. Vincent Millay
1892 –1950
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Because it's Music Monday. I particularly like the back-up dancers. Maybe because they are in ordinary clothes. Idk.

Jon Batiste - FREEDOM

Watch on YouTube

somedayseattle

My doctor appointment was at 1 PM. I scheduled my ride at 12:15 in case there were errors. (Also my referral said to be there at 12:40). I made it at 12:45 to find all three receptionist were on lunch break. Why in the purple piss would you schedule me to be there at 12:40 if there’s no one there?? One of the drones eventually showed up. I was third to check in. After going through all my information she tells me I’m in the wrong suite. I tell her my referral says Suite 3349. She corrects me to Suite 3300.
I make the roll to Suite 3300. I hand all of my medical information to the receptionist. Recently my Medicaid has changed names from Stupid Ass Medicaid to Bullshit Medicaid I believe. The receptionist tells me she can’t accept Bullshit Medicaid because it’s a different name. Now it will take at least 15 days to approve the new insurance that’s actually the old insurance that they already approved. She told me next time let them know I have new insurance ahead of time. I’ve never actually been here so how the fuck could I confirm with you my insurance is different you silly cow. Then she tells me my doctors referral was incorrect. I had to do a different procedure which had to be rescheduled. How do you know what my doctor prescribed was wrong? You don’t work with my doctor thus you don’t know what he wanted.
You guys can do all your cross checking and reassuring and rescheduling, but one thing is for certain, you won’t see my stupid ass at your office ever again. This is not a procedure of life and death. It’s merely a test because my original heart guy needs a kickback to pay off his Porsche.
Not today, bucko. That was three hours taken from me. It’s a beautiful 72° day and I don’t need to waste three hours screwing around with dingleberry doctors.

nanila

Watch on YouTube

Very much feeling as though I'm limping toward the finish line here. The University shuts down at CoB tomorrow for the Easter holiday. I'm running on fumes and caffeine, trying to clear my desk and inbox of things I really shouldn't leave until after it re-opens.

This month features the return of the canal boats*, two trips to London, and the inaugural ice creams from the Ninja Creami (thank you,

semianonymous!). Making your own soft serve ice cream from scratch truly is a luxury.

* We missed them last year. The entire lock flight had to be shut for months so the Canal and Rivers Trust could carry out extensive repairs to a lock with collapsed walls.

sholio

1. My snowy spring icons are generally an accurate image of how spring is going around here, but this year perhaps more than most. It isn't even supposed to be above freezing today. By the end of the week we may finally start getting some 40-ish temperatures. The entire month of March has been absolutely frigid - many low temperature records were set - and we still have 3 feet of snow. SPRING WHEN???

2. I realized how much I miss fandom bingo cards when I discovered a new one at

whatif_au, which is taking requests for cards. (Full list of AUs at the link; you can veto up to 3, and you can request a 3x3 or 5x5 card. Note that you WILL have to join the comm to post a request.)

So anyway I requested a card.

Sentinel/Guide	Treasure Hunter	Holiday Mythology
Robot	WILD CARD	Decade Specific
People with Disabilities	Fake Relationship	Cowboy

Will I do anything with this? who knows. But it's fun to have a bingo card again! (Biggles cowboy AU immediately came to mind because it would be hilarious.)

3.

unconventionalcourtship is back for another round. You pick a Harlequin/Mills & Boon book blurb and write a fic based on it. I don't recall that I've ever officially done this, but it's always fun to see what people come up with. List of blurbs here and also a plot generator which allows you to put in character names. (I recall having fun with this in the past.)

I'm not sure that this is something I actually want to write, but I can't help thinking how much Londo & G'Kar would loathe being in a Harlequin/Mills & Boon plot, and no one around them would be having any fun at all, either.

sovay

Rabbit, rabbit! How is it Pesach already? Open the door to the stranger. The most important thing.

Not being a person who celebrates April Fool's, I found it unnecessary to spend more than an hour waiting in the office after my ophthalmologist's appointment in order to discover that the hold-up was my insurance refusing to cover every single relevant ointment in this country to which I am not allergic, but

spatch met me afterward with two boxes of matzah and a tiny surprise salt maple chess pie that we have until sunset to disappear and a postcard from

regshoe was waiting for me when I got home.

I really feel like last month just broke up in parts around me, or vice versa. Yesterday my afternoon was devoted to MGH. Hestia purred sleekly and a little excitably as therapy.

Current Music: Michael Flanders & Donald Swann, "Twice Shy"

oursin

What I read

Finished Honeycomb.

Read Jonathan Kellerman, Jigsaw (2026), for a change of pace. While the perp is, for a change, not a serial killer with intricate pattern of murders, still a psycho, though revenge in the mix. I yearn for Dr Delaware to get a locked room mystery at a country house party with a load of ye trad motives.

Then back to Barbara Hambly, Murder in the Trembling Lands (2025), which I still found fairly confusing - admittedly the plot is rooted in confused/confusing stories - on a re-read.

Something or other brought to mind a really obscure author whose 2 novels I'd managed to find (after reading the second from the library and then wanting to read it again and searching for it for years), so actually managed to retrieve these from the approximate places where they were supposed to be on actual shelves.

D. A. Nicholas Jones, Parade in Pairs (1958), first novel, some good things, thought the racial violence at the end was a bit gratuitous - chronology suggests it could not have been response to Notting Hill Race Riots. Period racial attitudes are situated in characters and there is quite a bit of ambiguity going on. Also some, fairly peripheral, characters are gay.

On the go

D. A. Nicholas Jones, Never Had It So Good (1963), which is the one I first encountered. I see I wrote about it years ago back in LJ days.

Also on the go, as I was out and about today and did not want to tote about a substantial hardback, Farah Mendlesohn, Considering The Female Man by Joanna Russ, or, As the Bear Swore, published yesterday.

Up next

No idea.

maju

When I came upstairs this morning I found the ceiling fan in the living room festooned with toilet paper. I asked Violet what was going on, and she said "April Fools". Strange April Fools joke but I guess the joke would have been on everyone if someone had turned on the fan.

It's very warm today; right now it's about 22°C/72°F and the humidity is quite high. There is rain in the forecast but so far it's only cloudy (but looking more threatening as time passes) after a sunny morning. This morning I actually went for a run in very pleasant conditions.

I've been doing a virtual run around the US since December 2016, and at my current rate of about 5 km a day I will finish on 21st June this year. So far I've covered 16,769 km and I've got 401 km to go. Now that the weather has improved I'm hoping to increase my daily average slightly and finish sooner, but we'll see. When I finish this map I plan to do the shortest one available, Run Around the UK and Ireland, which is only 3,890 km, or if I decide I'm feeling slightly more ambitious, Run Around New Zealand which is just over 4,000 km.

somedayseattle

Another damn doctor referral viait. This time I am off to Wake Med Heart and Vascular for a Lexiscan Sestamibi AKA 3 hour waste of a lovely sunny afternoon. I think I have 1 more referral next week then.....

summersgate

Tick Season. I got so many ticks on me yesterday when I walked the dogs to the creek. I feel like I'm under assault. I took 5 off Rainy later that night and this morning. It's much harder to see them on Andy. We treated the dogs with a fresh dose of flea and tick last night. I have checked myself thoroughly but I still feeling them crawling on me.

Last year I got a cassette playing device that will read and store information from old cassettes and transfer it to your computer. I wanted to copy the cassettes we made of my dad telling his stories and then copy that to thumb drives to give the family. He was quite a story teller and had some good ones. Anyway I've been avoiding actually doing the work of using the device and listening to dad's voice. I fear it'll just make me sad. But I think today will be the day that I try to do the transfer. I had a dream last night that seemed encouraging in that direction. I imagined it would just be simple - just play the cassettes while hooked up to the computer but no, after opening the box I see it takes downloading a program to get it to work. I guess. Blaa. Doing that now. I don't know what I'm doing! I used to understand my computer much better when we had Windows xp. I don't know my way around my computer anymore. I wish Johnny was here.

susandennis

The cats and I are having a food fight. They do not like the latest acquisition but 1. we have 24 5 oz cans of it that we are going to eat come hell or high water and 2. it's especially formulated to relieve stress. So they do not have to like it but they are going to eat it all up. It could be a long cat food month.

Amazon is ever increasing its options for returning stuff. I remember when my nephew first moved to his teeny tiny NW Iowa town, the first thing he told me about it was that the closest Amazon return site was an hour away in Nebraska. That's living off the grid in my book. Anyway, around here, they have now added Fed Ex. Like UPS, you just take your item in with a QR code and they provide the package and the label and the shipping. It's a schosh more convenient than UPS. So I thought I'd try it. I have one item to return but I also have 30 days so I'm in no hurry.

It probably won't be today. The Mariner game is an afternoon game today. Chicken TV!

I'm now reading the second of the 5 books that the librarian offered up. Proof by Jon Cowan. It had a rough start - lazy plot development/writing but now I'm at the 50% mark and he's hit his stride. Interesting plot and I'm hooked. So far, of the 5, 1 was a huge success, 1 was a total fail and now we're on this one. I'm still on hold for the other two.

I was debating skipping the swim today but now I've changed my mind. I think I'll just suit up and head on over. Such a luxury to have such a lovely pool such an easy walk from here.

runpunkrun posting in

gluten_free

Our prompt for April is Comfort Foods!

To fill this prompt, you can:

Slide into the comments of this post and share a link to a recipe, product, or resource and why you like it.
Write up a favorite recipe and post it to the comm.
Post a review of a related product or cookbook to the comm.
Try someone's recipe and reply to their post (or comment) with any changes you made and how it turned out.

Monthly prompts are only for inspiration and not a requirement. You can post whatever you like to the comm whenever you like as long as it meets the community guidelines.

And, a reminder, you can now tag your own posts.

pilottttt posting in

common_nature

( Read more... )

You can read more about how we visited Troy here (in Russian).

susandennis

I spent all of yesterday tending to my flock. Trying this and then trying that and then, finally, I think I have a pattern I'm happy with.

One issue was the eyes. They end up needing to go into where there is a hole in the crochet. Summersgate said she's been sewing over that hole and I tried that and it kind of works. Another issue is that there was still too many holes and the stuffing shows through. So I dropped a size in my crochet hook but then the chicken was too small. Then I added a row and then the chicken was too big.

So I had a think. And changed my granny square to a granny round square with a special corner for the eye. I like the results a lot. There will be a lot more chickens, I believe.

Here's what I'm doing.

1. 12 double crochet (12)
2. 2 DC in each stitch (24)
3. 2 DC, then 1 DC, then 2 DC, etc (36)
Then I make a square
4. 2 DC, ch 1, 2 DC in 3 corners, [2 hdc, 4 sc, 2 hdc] on 4 sides. In the 4th corner, 5 DC's.
5. 1 DC in every stitch and 2 DC, ch 1, 2 DC in 3 corners and fill in (1 or 2 DC's) in that one corner.

That one corner becomes a nice, stable area for the eye.

I put an eye on each square and then put them wrong sides together and do a single crochet around the three edges leaving the one opposite the eye open.

Then I add the top comb. With the eye on the top left hand corner, I count 8 stitches over from that corner and start - 1 sc, 3 DC, 1 sc, [1 DC, 1 TR], [1 TR, 1 DC], 1 sc, 3 DC, slp the last stitch.

Then round the eye corner I skip one stitch from the comb and start the beak. 1 DC, ch 2, 1 DC in the first of those 2 chains, 1 DC and then a slip stitch to end.

Then I stuff her and close up the bottom and add the chicken feet: [ch 3, TR] 3 times in the middle of the bottom.

DONE!

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Network

the importance of being puzzled

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Physical Therapy Intake

Books read in March

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Artemis II

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in a state of love and trust

1SE for March 2026

April 1, no fooling

Go right on over to meet your doom

Wednesday went on a jaunt to Rochester

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pitching a tent

wednesday

Wednesday

Prompt: Comfort Foods

Persian squirrels inhabiting the ruins of the legendary Troy

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June 2024

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