Onyx Storm: Chapter 45

Apr. 23rd, 2025 04:05 am
[personal profile] penwalla
Violet is having the dream about the venin sage that she's been having for like. 2 whole books. Which she insists is just a dream. Even though we figured out it wasn't the first time it happened. Instead of using her supposedly good brain to figure that out, Violet unwraps last chapter's mysterious package.
pausing the plot for...lingerie )

Random question: Murderbot

Apr. 23rd, 2025 10:21 am
cyare: An owl with a question mark near its head (Text: ?)
[personal profile] cyare
I was looking around and I couldn't find a Murdebot community :O I tried searching by interest, too, but nothing came up.

Is it just me missing something glaringly obvious or does it really not exist?

Black Cherries by W. S. Merwin

Apr. 27th, 2025 04:13 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this


*******


Link

There is a friending meme ongoing

Apr. 26th, 2025 04:05 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Clicky!

Also, I meant to say re: the utilities that you are all the best and I absolutely love you :)

(Still need to call National Grid and still don't wanna.)

World Book Day

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:10 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The official theme for World Book Day 2025 is:

"Read Your Way: Diverse Books for Every Mind"

This theme emphasizes the importance of inclusion and diversity in reading. It encourages readers to explore different voices, perspectives, and cultures through literature, promoting empathy and global understanding
.

Read more... )

Good News

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:09 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Good news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.

What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?

Quote & Fact...

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:03 am
fairyniamh: Unknown creator (Sasuke dance)
[personal profile] fairyniamh
Quote:

"Be brave and clear. Follow your heart and don't be overly influenced by outside factors. Be true to yourself."

"If you hear someone scream, you shouldn't close the drapes. You should help. You've got to try."

~ Shirley Temple


Facts: (Weird Laws)

Wisconsin :

No person shall throw or shoot any object, arrow, stone, snowball, other missile or projectiles, by hand or by any other means, at any other person or at, in or into any building, street, sidewalk, alley, highway, park, playground, or other public place within the city of Wausau. (Okay, do I agree with most of this... Minus snowballs and projectiles is too vague. I, now, openly admit to using spitballs against my bullies. Most teachers knew it was done in retaliation.)

According to state Statute 944.16, adultery is a Class I Felony punishable by $10,000 and three years in jail. (They take adultery seriously. Not as serious as I do. I warned my husband that if ye cheats, I will make Lorena Bobbitt look like a newborn kitten. He may look all he likes, as long as there is no touching.)

(no subject)

Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:53 pm
stepnix: Nanoko from Wish Upon the Pleiades (magical girl)
[personal profile] stepnix

you know, playing a bunch of raising sims was probably not expected preparation for Slay the Princess, but, it sure does give me a unique perspective on things

Today's Adventures

Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:08 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went out shopping.

Read more... )

Support

Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:12 pm
apachefirecat: Made by BlondeBitz (Spike)
[personal profile] apachefirecat
Title: Support
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairings: Spike/Buffy
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Her Spike is supportive, as always.



Read more... )

Insect Apocalypse

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:29 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Insects are disappearing due to agriculture -- and many other drivers, new research reveals

New paper highlights 500+ interconnected drivers behind global insect decline.
Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide, but why? Agricultural intensification tops the list of proposed reasons, but there are many other, interconnected drivers that have an impact, according to new research
.

Read more... )

Happy Earth Day!

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:13 pm
wyld_dandelyon: (let's go!)
[personal profile] wyld_dandelyon
I've been under the weather. This time I managed to get Bronchitis just from the end of the winter heating season (unless a friend with a congestive heart condition was actually sick, and not just coughing because of the heart condition). But I think this was coming on earlier, and the med regime my former allergist suggested was keeping my lungs and sinuses a lot clearer than in the past, but not enough for my body to clear out the infection.

Well, I came to this conclusion Friday, with (among other things) singing at the Eurofilk showing me I was unusually short of breath for singing; I already had an appointment with my newish primary doc who I really like on Monday, and when I tried to call the allergist last month to set up an appointment, there was no answer or answering machine on his number, or on the alternate number I found on Google. I did find an article about him listing him as 81 years old, and I'm not sure how long ago that was written, so I'm assuming he died or retired. So, I waited out the weekend and got tireder and tireder, and shorter and shorter of breath.

Happily, she was willing to prescribe antibiotics and steroids (if I'd gotten antibiotics on Friday, that might have been enough), unhappily, when they figured out that the only way they could give me the meds the doc thought most appropriate that didn't have corn in it (kids' liquid, again), it turned out that the pharmacy couldn't fill it until today. It was too late to try to talk the doc into prescribing something different, as the clinic was closed.

So today I woke up way too early, and was NOT falling asleep again (my body does insist on waking when I really need meds, which freaked out my RN mother when I was first sick enough to always be awake when she came in to wake me up to take them). This was handy in that I was able to deal with a bank overdraft for my grown-up kid (she's still using the account I got her when she went to Denmark in 4th grade so I could easily transfer money to her if there was an unexpected need, so, being awake I saw the text notification) (Her birthday is later this month, so an early birthday gift was perfectly reasonable).

And then I had food and called the pharmacy, because I WANTED those meds before the rest of the day's errands, which included getting My Angel to her PT appointment, mailing a thing (in a post office, since there seems to be no more drop-off boxes outside our regular post office any more--WTF, government?--and going to pick up meds at a different pharmacy too.

The strip mall the post office was in had one of the closing JoAnne Fabrics, which had almost no fabric left, and not much of anything else either. I did find some things to buy, including two substantially marked down big bags designed to hold a sewing machine and sewing stuff, but which I plan to use one of for author stuff (books, display, etc.) on the assumption that I'll do signings at cons again, and the other for acrylic paints, brushes, and the like since my current bag and plastic bin plan isn't working out as well as I'd like, and because having that stuff on wheels will be very convenient.

I also got some beads, wire, a thimble and multitool, sewing machine needles, an ironing pad to put on a table, some tape, a couple of pillow forms for planned gifting, and, surprisingly, a basket of tumbled stones to put in the fishtank. Sadly, the heavy-duty dolly they had pictured in the front as available had already been sold. I looked at the jewelry making stuff, thought about the heavy duty crimper and some of those beads, but I haven't been making jewelry lately and can use the hemostats I use for holding autoharp strings to crimp things, so I left those behind. I did also get some very discounted project boards, so if we decide to go to one or more protests, we can take signs.

And I took photos of our daffodils in the middle of all that.

I am cheered by all the photos of protests I'm seeing, and by how badly Elon's car company is doing. It gives me hope. Keep contacting your elected officials, we've got to wear them down until they stand up to our very cruel and foolish leader.

Now I am going to hit post and go watch Rachel show all those pictures of the signs again, and do Duolinguo, so I don't miss a day, and fall in bed. Maybe I'll manage to post Daffodil pics tomorrow.

Car stuff sorted...

Apr. 22nd, 2025 09:16 pm
mistressofmuses: Image of nebulae in the colors of the bi pride flag: pink, purple, and blue (Default)
[personal profile] mistressofmuses
I mentioned that last night the truck very suddenly started sputtering and running extremely rough, and the check engine light came on.

We took the truck over to a local auto parts store to get a read on the code for the check engine light. They said the most likely culprit was an ignition coil, causing misfires in one of the cylinders. That was one of the potential things I'd seen on the list of possible causes for the rough idle. Pretty firmly on the lower end of the middle of "how fucked are we," so that was a relief. (So glad it wasn't "fuel pump" money.)

So we took it to the usual shop we use. They said they wouldn't be able to get to it tomorrow, and they would have to do their own diagnostic rather than relying on the code, which was fine. They'd give me a call tomorrow morning to let me know the results of their diagnostic and talk costs and recommendations and such.

Mom loaned us her second car, since Taylor doesn't typically go in to the office anymore, so we could get around until then.

-

Turned out Jaspurr was at the vet (same vet that we were at yesterday) for surgery. :( Poor boy had a lump on his abdomen, so they were removing and biopsying it.

Got the excellent news that it was just a fatty lump, and did not need to be biopsied!

-

I was just about to take a nap, when the auto place called. They were able to get it in today (initially I was told it was the main tech's day off, so couldn't get it looked at until tomorrow; apparently someone else was available today!)

They did not think it was the ignition coil, they thought it was the spark plugs. They wanted to replace the spark plugs plus do an injector system service. I misheard the initial quote and thought it was super high, like four figures; it was not, haha. It was within the general range I'd been expecting. (Which I wasn't *delighted* to pay, but when I balked at my misheard price, he offered a discount to bring it down slightly, ha.)

They got the work done by the end of the afternoon, but when he called back he said the spark plugs hadn't fixed the issue... because it turned out it was the ignition coil. *Facepalm* (They say that the coil was fine when they tested it earlier, because they swapped a good coil for the potentially bad one, and the problem persisted, which was why they'd ruled it out; maybe the coil and a spark plug both failed?)

They replaced the spark plugs and the ignition coil. He gave us the coil at-cost (which was cheaper than we could have gotten it if we'd bought it ourselves; we priced them at the auto parts place when we got the code read) and didn't charge any extra labor for it. He also completely comped the system service that they did, so the total wound up only being $14 over the original estimate. In exchange for the discount, he just asked that we leave a nice review, which I did.

The truck is now running fine! It might be even smoother than it was prior to the problem starting last night; it hadn't been having issues that made me want to take it in, but occasionally a little roughness that I wasn't noticing this evening. So perhaps that coil had been on the way out for a while.

Not the best timing in the world, and I spent a good part of last night and this morning fighting through the chest pain and horrible nausea and prickling scalp of massive fucking anxiety, but I'm glad it's sorted out, that it didn't happen at a *worse* time.
gentlyepigrams: (food)
[personal profile] gentlyepigrams
This month's Tasting Collective dinner was at Via Triozzi, which is on Lower Greenville. I liked the idea of the menu but the execution was disappointing.

The first course was a celery and fennel root salad, which would have been better if there had been more of the sweet gorgonzola with it. Second course was a fancy mussels in sauce with spicy chickpeas, which I thought was the best thing on the menu (and the only item from the regular menu). The third courts was a mushroom pasta. The pasta was fine; the mushrooms were amazing. The fourth course was a roasted chicken ravioli. We thought it was a little weird because there was chicken outside the ravioli, and little bits of crispy chicken skin. Not bad, just a little strange. Apparently it was based on a comfort meal for one of the chefs. The dessert was olive oil cake with whipped cream and macerated berries, and it was fine but the olive oil cake was dry, which ... I'm not sure how you do that.

Like the Goldie's trip we did a while ago (which I failed to write up at the time), this was mostly a tasting menu of new ideas, and not yet refined by the chef into menu quality. Based on the bar, the service, and the one dish from the regular menu, I'd try it again, but not with the enthusiasm that I tried Rye.

Zines and Identity

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:13 pm
grayestofghosts: a sketch of a man reading a paper (Default)
[personal profile] grayestofghosts
So I was starting to make a minizine and it's about making websites and I'm realizing that I should probably have like, my own website, blog, email address on here and it's just making me think... if I put that shit in print... that will mean that I am making a commitment to these usernames, identities, etc? And that just feels... real scary! It's honestly making me wonder if I should change some stuff around. I don't know. I am no good at names, and I don't know what to call myself for this one.

Then again for a little minizine I probably shouldn't be having an existential crisis about it, and because I will have the master copies I should just be able to change the addresses if I really need to update it, right? Ugh.

I may know who I am, but what to call myself is an entirely different question. That one, I don't know. Ugh.
stonepicnicking_okapi: otherwords (otherwords)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I love an ekphrastic and this is proof that poetic forms we might think of as nothing but wordplay or for children (e.g., abecedarians or acrostics) can be very sophisticated and serious.

Leaving the Psychologist: An Abecedarian Ekphrastic by Grisel Y. Acosta

after Remedios Varo’s Mujer saliendo del psicoanalista

another face has sprouted in my chest
beastly, that’s me, a super freak
cavorting with your skull in my grasp
displaced personalities cannot be cloaked
ever, they will grow like a haunted
fever of wispy hair
gathered in a basket, along with time, a
half-filled vial of poison &
illusions of tick-tock-clocking syringe
just let me explain:
killing myself is not an option
let me try to live with my
multiple personas and their infinite masks, why
not weave them into a poncho
of chartreuse green, grow them,
pouch them, wear them like horns
question my memories, befriend
radical thoughts and nightmares
solemn my specters behind
tenuous doors with intimidating bells
understand the unexplainable, develop
venom as Tilda Swinton couture
when dreams become a snail shell planted
X, marks the spot of this treasure I shall reveal,
yell on a mountain, YES, this is mine, I will
zap my fears—I can face all the faces, darling, of course I can

--

This is the work of art which inspired the piece:

varo painting
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