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Health (good news)
Oct. 8th, 2025 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azurelunaticColonoscopy results: mostly normal, one pre (not sure how many pre-s to put here) cancerous "lesion", and all of them removed. Repeat in two years, this time with Extended Prep. (My understanding of "lesion" and the medical definition may not align entirely well.)
Started the new injectable after the colonoscopy. I can definitely feel the impact. It remains to be seen exactly what kind. One of my friends has a new injectable too; she's getting some sinus clearance from it. Of all the random effects.
After the infusion, Belovedest and I trekked up-city to pick up a package for
alexseanchai. All Pampered Chef, and a high proportion of likely goodies vs. likely duds. There were some varying scrub brushes. The utensil/knife scrub brush looks like dentures that are actually a scrub brush, but I can see that coming in handy. There was also a quarter-sheet pan with two eighth-sheet pans. And then we trekked back down when Belovedest realized they'd left their tablet at the cancer center. Freakin' ADHD. We're on The Assassins of Thasalon in our progress through Penric. I have a smallish makeup hobby. Part of that is sometimes going all Weird Barbie on my face with eyeliner or whatever. Tonight I've convinced myself (via iridescent green eyeliner) that some kind of moon phase forehead jewelry might really slap.
Introducing Solo_Knight
Oct. 8th, 2025 10:32 pmgreen_knight( The not-so-great adventures of green_knight )
I've handed in my last mss, which was a mess, slept myself out, ordered a new phone, and found a few brain cells; I'll be ok and I try to do better: read DW more often, finish all the half-written entries or dump them completely and free up my stack.
One thing I want to do more of is play RPGs, but again I haven't had the spoons to actually look for a group. So I started to look into SoloRPGs to just broaden my horizons a bit.
I love DnD. I want to play DnD properly again, but even with two people, scheduling is a problem.
So I've started to play solo, and read a lot of materials, and watched a lot of YouTube, ad poked at numerous systems and came to the conclusion that if I want to get anywhere with this hobby, I need to be more systematic about it.
To avoid cluttering up this journal and make it the SoloRPG ALL THE TIME channel, I've created
solo_knight, and to avoid that feeling of emptiness I've waited until I had several entries polished and a format that I think will work.It's a mixture of play reports and reviews, with the odd deeper delve into mechanics. Right now, my goal is to explore the space as a whole, so I am willing to play a certain amount of games that I would not have picked voluntarily – I mean, science fiction horror survival? Does not sound like fun. (Wasn't fun. Was an experience I wouldn't want to have missed.)
And I'm writing down my experiences so they don't fall out of my brain immediately, I have a modest goal of two games a month, and a stretch goal of processing all of my Indie games by this time next year. (A lot of them are one-page or close to; things I'm going to play once for a couple of hours if at all, but I also have a number of long form games, and on top of that, I have numerous proper RPG systems I'm curious about that can be played with a GM emulator, but in order to do that, I need to be comfortable with emulators first so this will keep me occupied for a while.
So there you go.
solo_knight briefly turns up, bangs on his shield, and vanishes again. And for a bonus task when my to-do list is shorter, I'll have to see how to link the two accounts so I can switch more easily between them.
[stationery] contemplating a self-indulgence
Oct. 8th, 2025 10:08 pmkaberettIn My Ridiculous Pen Collection, I have a Lamy 2000 (largely inspired by Ant Newman of UKFountainPens waxing lyrical). I got it second hand, as with all but one of my pens; the one that showed up cheap came with an F nib.
( Read more... )
I'm definitely making this again. and again. and again!
Oct. 8th, 2025 12:39 amtrobadoraProportions: 250ml milk / 25g Ritter Sport Peppermint.
Just put the chocolate into the milk and heat in the microwave in short bursts, stirring thorougly in between, until it's entirely melted. (It pays to use a glass and not a porcelain mug, so you can see whether it's fully incorporated. *g*) Add a little sweetener to taste. YUM. :D
[growth] SAFFRON
Oct. 7th, 2025 06:34 pmkaberettThis morning I had Physio at The Hospital Up The Road, which is a really good way to get me to actually go to the allotment (which is round the back of the hospital site, so the way this usually goes is I cycle to the allotment, drop my bike off, and then cut through to the opposite side of the site where Physio Happens, thereby not needing to faff about with bike locks).
Upon my return from physio (which was not... great; I got probably-a-cold two and a half weeks ago and my cardiovascular-respiratory situation is still Distinctly Not Happy) I actually paid slightly closer attention to my saffron bed -- the last couple of trips I've been all "ugh, nothing doing, I should really weed but UGH clearly the saffron has all DIED yes I KNOW that this is the traditional time of year for me to be convinced that The Saffron Has Died only to discover--" and indeed not only were there multiple clumps of saffron, most of them have flowers that are clearly going to happen Any Moment Now.
So today I have come home with six saffron strands, and am expecting A Bunch More, and have reinspected the saffron containers on the patio and established that one of those has them starting to come up as well -- and so now, obviously, I need to work out what to do with the RIDICULOUS RICHES represented by... maybe like two dozen strands of saffron. (Yes I also have a stash of shop-bought.)
Saffron & bay custard tarts with sticky blackberries? More saffron and cardamom panettone pudding (which we know we like)? Saffron rice pudding? All the saffron recipes from Sweet, which is possibly going to be my next cook-(almost)-all-the-way-through project? Lebovitz's saffron ice cream, to go with the planned quince sorbet? Saffron buns? Literally any of the obvious savoury options??? SO MUCH CHOICE.
Everyone's an oyster with their grain of sand
Oct. 7th, 2025 04:25 amviridian5
It's been a long time since I last posted about loading my photos to my Flickr, even though I've been loading a lot of photos to my Flickr! I have some shots from St. John Cemetery but also a lot of window display photos, from Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale's, and Louis Vuitton. Some flowers too. +++
Randomly, a Stop & Shop I went to for groceries had some makeup discounted, so I picked up an e.l.f. Camo CC Cream that's usually $15.99 for $3.99. I don't know what the undertones of my face actually are, but the only one of these Stop & Shop had in the sales bin was full-coverage Fair 100W, with warm golden undertones, so that's what I bought. (Someone once told me the color of the veins in your wrist can help you identify, and my veins are dark blue and a light greenish blue.) One of my complaints is having unwanted redness/pinkness in my face, so I try to avoid things that might make me look pinker.
The result was a bit too uncanny valley for me, someone who goes out bare-faced a lot of the time and with a light veil of bareMinerals' "fairly light" foundation the rest of the time. This might look less unnatural as what summer color I get on the edges of my face fades as the autumn and winter come in. Hilariously, "full coverage" didn't do much to my undereye shadows.
Misc stuff
Oct. 6th, 2025 09:39 pmysobel2) I'm kind of annoyed that not all of Doctor Who is available right now. D+ has the Ncuti Gatwa ones, but nothing else. I own the first few seasons of New Who, which is rewatch for me, but when it was first airing I stopped having access partway through Matt Smith, and I haven't seen Peter Capaldi or Jodie Whittaker at all. Obviously I can watch out of order, but. Grump.
3) My current headcanon for Phantom of the Opera is that Erik is some flavor of asexual. He wants Christine as a bride, but it's a very child-ish "marrying means you're together forever" attitude, and if he knows newlyweds sleep together, he's oblivious to that being anything other than cuddling. He doesn't take advantage of Christine when she's down in his lair. And the sequence of "Either be with me forever or your boyfriend dies" "What if I kiss you?" "... ... ... ok you can leave" fits in, because in my head he's like "??? is this sex? Gross???" This amuses me way too much somehow...
4) I've pretty much decided to quit Duolingo when I hit 4000, which is in a bit over a month. The content is getting more irritating and while I am a little sad to not see how far I go, fuck Duolingo.
5) Am doing a daily drawing challenge (via Marc Brunet on YouTube -- he has a "learn to draw in 30 days" video with prompts. Posting the oh-so-exciting results to my instagram ... if you're desperate to see a bunch of squares and circles and cylinders and stuff, lol.
"A Novel"
Oct. 6th, 2025 11:42 pmviridian5Why is the author spending so much time writing to the other person about things they already know!?
The writer of the second person parts has Alzheimer's and is trying to get things down before they disappear, but the way it's written keeps hitting me like "As you know." It's the "you." "You said", "you did." If it weren't second person like this, I think it wouldn't keep slapping the back of my head constantly. I can write down my memories and feelings without this. I can't help feeling that a lot of it is this way because we, the reader, need to be informed, and that things would be set down differently if the reader weren't there. Like in a lot of "a novel" books, I'm too conscious of the form because the writer is thrusting it in my face.
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Happy Guardian Wishlist Day!
Oct. 6th, 2025 10:11 pmtrobadora![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
guardian_wishlist revealed this morning with over 60 new Guardian & related works!There is so much fantastic new stuff, and I haven't had time to properly look at much yet, but I need to share the three fantastic gifts I got:
- from awanderingcoyote, lovely Guardian/Stargate Atlantis crossover art with a bunch of inspired concept notes for a crossover that's also a fix-it/sequel to the Guardian ending
- from facethestrange, gorgeous Guardian RPF art that brilliantly combines the implications of the infamous weight-lifting BTS video with an interview question that, as the artist says, totally could be real
- and from nnozomi, an absolutely delightful ficlet about Jiajia and Professor Zhou (and Shen Wei, of course, in absentia), combining them in ways I'd never considered before
So so many thanks to all of you, and everyone else who is part of this fest! You are all amazing! ♥ ♥ ♥
RIP Terry Garey, 1948-2025
Oct. 6th, 2025 01:08 pmbibliofileShe was this amazing person, a good writer, a poet (founding member of the Lady Poetesses from Hell), librarian, and longtime science fiction fan. Formerly of the Bay Area and Minneapolis primarily, and many other places in her youth.
current stitching
Oct. 5th, 2025 08:29 pmthistleingreyI've reached the last increase on the current cardigan WIP's first cuff-up sleeve, about my handwidth below where I'd want the lower edge of an armhole to be. That's a good place to pause it and knit something else for a few weeks. When the second sleeve catches up to it, they'll wait, capless, while I start the body section. If I end up going up a pattern size near the shoulder, best to edit the relevant pieces in parallel, not months apart.
(New: sometimes my hands report tendon pain directly! Great signal to take breaks! I've missed it! In other words, 3.5 distinct sources of hand pain began invisibly during 2020! I had tendon-overuse issues before then, but much less often, and flares were accompanied by the pain-reporting that one would expect.)
In effect, everything is on hold while I start Sundial with better icord edges and different scrappy colors from what the pattern photos show. ( small nattering )
(Some stashbust-compatible patterns that my 2019 hands could've made:
Persian Dreams,
Pixie Square,
Color Waves,
Persian Tiles,
Murano,
Ipsa,
Geo Groove,
Lizard Ridge)
vital functions
Oct. 5th, 2025 08:41 pmkaberettReading. So many things. Or at least it feels that way. Unsure if actually So Many.
( Melzack & Wall, McRobbie, McGuire, Duncan, Stock )
( Cookbooks )
And I am now TWO months behind on Dreamwidth. TWO. Ahahahaha.
Playing. Several more rounds of Fluxx.
Tukoni: Prologue, "a point-and-click puzzle adventure" featuring beautiful botanical art. Very very much enjoyed this tiny snippet (a mushroom! that makes it rain! when you pat it!) and am mildly dismayed at the five-year gap between the release of this prologue and the subsequent demo of what will theoretically be a full game...
Cooking. ALSO SO MANY THINGS.
- another recipe from East: chilli tofu
- green beans in tomato sauce with fennel seeds, feta, and toast, loosely inspired by a thing out of the latest Ottolenghi cookbook (in the sense that I went looking for confirmation of my sense that the thing I was thinking of doing would work, found it, and promptly carried on with my intentions rather than the recipe I was distinctly less into)
- smitten kitchen's vegetarian cassoulet, with the addition of Dubious Protein Chunks
- a quince cake, which I made a lot of modifications to, and of which I am dubious, probably because of those modifications (but A seems to like it, so that's a win)
- hazelnut and treacle Welsh cakes, leaving us with two remaining recipes of any interest in the tourist-tat Welsh cakes cookbook (cranberry + white chocolate is a no, as are the two recipes containing bacon; double choc chip is a maybe, and I'm willing to consider that Caerphilly + leek might have merits but A is distinctly more dubious)
- soda bread! notable because (i) not sourdough, (ii) using the buttermilk culture I have successfully kept alive this time around (and have now refreshed), and (iii) I ignored all of the instructions about Handling It As Little As Possible and as a result it achieved Structural Integrity, which I usually do... not manage
Eating. I have successfully worked out how to make Wagamama's current menu provide me with food I will actually look forward to, which is A Great Victory. Located the last of last year's seasonal Dark Chocolate With Raspberry and have been gently nibbling it. QUINCE. And another variety of apple from an abandoned neighbouring plot at the allotment; this one is Very Crunchy and Very Red but not particularly flavours.
(The tree that got planted so as to encroach on my plot is some kind of cooker, unsure which, because my usual approach to cooking apples is James Grieve from my mother's garden...)
Making & mending. I think that, inspired by some helpful answers on reddit, I have got my clicky fountain pen clicking reliably again? It was doing a thing where it wouldn't lock, and it was pointed out to me that probably the issue was going to be located in the knock not at the trap door, so I... wrote the pen dry, rinsed out the ACCUMULATED DUST OF THE YEARS (THANKS DADFORD ROAD), and since then it's been behaving beautifully. Long may it continue.
Growing. There are still tomatoes? Also kohlrabi. I only managed a single flying visit to the plot this week; at some point soonish I'm going to need to get A to take me over with the car so I can retrieve from the greenhouse the various peppers I'm hoping to overwinter. I do not appear to have been issued with a Non-Cultivation Order in this round of inspections, which is a very welcome surprise!
Observing. A has seen the bat! I have not seen the bat because I have been Preoccupied with Other Things (misc). But the bat has not yet put itself to bed for the winter. <3
Yom Kippur
Oct. 5th, 2025 11:50 amlivIt's around midday Yom Kippur. I'm leading the morning service with a tiny community in the southwest corner of England. There's a slight hiatus as this congregation only have two Torah scrolls, so we have to roll through from the first reading in Exodus to the second reading in Leviticus, saving the second scroll for the afternoon reading from Deuteronomy. (In this community, like most of the Progressive world, our second reading is Leviticus 19, not the verses that are sometimes used as clobber texts to support homophobia.) While there's milling about, the volunteers running the tech for Zoom approach me at the bimah and let me know that there has been an attack in a synagogue in Manchester.
( reactions ) Also, I am deeply grateful for the kind people who checked in with me personally when they heard the news, and for all the leaders, Muslim, Christian and civic, who sent messages of support to the Jewish community and continue to be in solidarity with us.
More Soothing YouTube Videos
Oct. 4th, 2025 02:33 pmjesse_the_kNo embeds this time, just links.
Everyone is calm and competent and cooperative
calamitykim1 is a 20-something woman who loves driving big rigs and fixing machinery and narrates as she goes, but autocraptions. In September 2025, she drives a tractor trailer through small-town Britain, carrying a piece of metal so large it requires a police escort—her typical length is 30 minutes. Moving traffic, but no flashing lights.
Ocean Creatures
exploreoceans features both livestreams and highlight reels. Super soothing is the 2025 Highlights of Pacific Walruses Hauling Out on a Beach—no narration or music, just surf on the beach and moaning walruses for 25 minutes. It’s part of the explore.org network, which I discovered via their delightful Fat Bear Week contest.
Admire Our Planet from Space
I love astronauticast’s 3-5 minute timelapse compilations from the International Space Station. They’re compiled by ISAA, the Italian Space and Astronautics Association. They travel at a steady rate over various parts of our globe, with a handy reference diagram in the upper left corner. Witness hundreds of thunderstorms from the west coast of Mexico all the way to Portugal. Admire auroras and airflows above North America. I shouldn’t have been surprised that deserts are readily visible because so few clouds. No words—pleasant classical-ish music.