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I couldn't even take you home
Aug. 7th, 2025 01:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
viridian5
I've been very unimpressed with recent store windows but found some previously unposted photos of a run I made in August 2022 that involved Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Many are very colorful and some are strange. I also put up a few recent photos of a shoot at St. John's Cemetery. All of these are at my Flickr. +++
During that recent Manhattan night trip that didn't give me any good window options, I drove way uptown for a bit just to see stuff. They've really gentrified a part of Harlem I hadn't been to in many years.... For the way home, I consulted the Apple map on my iPhone and noticed it suggested a way home that wouldn't involve tolls, an option I always have on. Now, I'd already gone through Manhattan's Congestion zone to get into Manhattan and shouldn't have to pay again if I went back through it, but I decided to see what my alternative was just so I'd know. So, you can't use the Queensboro Bridge to get back into Queens without paying the congestion toll; you can get into Manhattan without the toll if you use the top level of that bridge because the top feeds out into the 60s, above the zone. To avoid a Congestion zone toll from 110th Street, where I was, you have to take the FDR Drive all the way down to Brooklyn Bridge, where the FDR feeds into the bridge without actually hitting the city streets, then take the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway back to Queens, adding a lot of additional miles. I was unlucky enough that the BQE had a lot of traffic that night at that time too.
The Forte's seats really aren't as comfortable as they should be, so I was somewhat stiff and hurting after this long drive.
+++
Local Crowley Playground has reopened after months of work, and I'm so disappointed with what they did to it. It needed work, desperately, but everything aside from the child play area now looks like the most generic contemporary-styled park, all white and beige and tile and the exact same plants they put in all new parks. Less seating, less identity. It used to look like the old school park it was. They took out a lot of old trees that used to be around it too. They couldn't just fix the paving?
I haven't been back at night yet so I don't know if they improved the lighting. There were parts of the playground that had none, so anyone using it after dark had to put their cellphone flashlights on to see anything. I don't assume someone with sense fixed that.
['cause] it's boiled [and] fried so
Aug. 6th, 2025 05:35 pmursamajorI have found THE WAY to make crispy firm tofu that I will now do forever more (or until I get bored and wander off to my next food obsession): brining it. It takes no longer than pressing it, is less messy, and the results are unbelievably crispy, even still a little crunchy after overnight refrigeration of the leftovers and then microwaving it, neither process designed to encourage that. And far more successful than any baking or cornstarch-dredging that I've tried before; will never go back. Noting here for my memories:
- Bring 4 cups water with 1/4 cup of salt (or, ratiowise, 1T salt for every 1 cup water needed to cover your tofu) to a boil, then turn off the heat
- Plop your cut-up tofu into the brine - the video did sliced planks, I did cubes so I didn't have two separate cutting steps, it came out fine
- Let it sit for 10-15 minutes
- Pan-fry the tofu in a little oil, flipping around the 3-4 minute mark; repeat until tofu is crispy enough to satisfy you.
As for silken tofu, for quick breakfasts/solo dinners, I've been nuking it with butter and soy sauce and a little bit of chili crisp, then topping it with a scallion that I chopped while waiting for the microwave. Maybe grating a little ginger over if I'm feeling fancy, or now that the lemons are slowly starting to come back, squeezing a little lemon over. It's like a hot hiyayakko, and might be more so if I ever remembered to pick up katsuobushi at Yaoya-San, heh.
*
In the meantime, our neighbors had been texting us while we were away about the annual plumpocalypse, and we came home to a carpet of purple underneath said plum tree, despite the neighbors coming by and picking up the excess while we were gone. Right now, we have enough to fill our entire dutch oven, withdozens hundreds more dropping daily. I really need to set up some kind of net situation to catch them before they hit the ground, I have made refrigerator jam literally every day for the last week and a half, and we are not keeping up. (Right now, our total jam despite our attempts to chip away at it fills my second-largest glass storage pan - 11 cups!)
But because my method so far looks like:
* sweep plums into a pile
* scoop plums of various softness into our largest kitchen bowl
* fill plum bowl with water and let it sit (hyounpark says in case there are worms?!)
* sort plums - only the intact ones make it through
* cook plums until just soft enough to pit
* pit
* weigh the puree, add 40% sugar
* cook, skimming off scum, until it passes the spoon test
* cool
* find a storage container to put the jam in in the fridge
* put on yogurt and toast ad nauseum because I have not committed to buying the whole kit for Proper Jam Making that would let the jam last longer than a few weeks in the fridge
At least our neighbors are equally meh about Proper Jamming so I feel less bad about not doing it, LOL. Still, I did take a cup and a half of yesterday's puree and turned it into a plum version of my favorite roasted applesauce cake for yesterday's block party, and it went smashingly; I was barely able to snag a piece for H and I to split!
Between the cake success and the tofu triumph and lovely August tomatoes marinating in a pool of olive oil and mint and salt and their own juices, I'm proud of these recent food feats. Now to figure out what I'm doing with the pork belly (for dinner tonight). Probably something that can get topped with some of the plum jam, heh.
- Bring 4 cups water with 1/4 cup of salt (or, ratiowise, 1T salt for every 1 cup water needed to cover your tofu) to a boil, then turn off the heat
- Plop your cut-up tofu into the brine - the video did sliced planks, I did cubes so I didn't have two separate cutting steps, it came out fine
- Let it sit for 10-15 minutes
- Pan-fry the tofu in a little oil, flipping around the 3-4 minute mark; repeat until tofu is crispy enough to satisfy you.
As for silken tofu, for quick breakfasts/solo dinners, I've been nuking it with butter and soy sauce and a little bit of chili crisp, then topping it with a scallion that I chopped while waiting for the microwave. Maybe grating a little ginger over if I'm feeling fancy, or now that the lemons are slowly starting to come back, squeezing a little lemon over. It's like a hot hiyayakko, and might be more so if I ever remembered to pick up katsuobushi at Yaoya-San, heh.
*
In the meantime, our neighbors had been texting us while we were away about the annual plumpocalypse, and we came home to a carpet of purple underneath said plum tree, despite the neighbors coming by and picking up the excess while we were gone. Right now, we have enough to fill our entire dutch oven, with
But because my method so far looks like:
* sweep plums into a pile
* scoop plums of various softness into our largest kitchen bowl
* fill plum bowl with water and let it sit (
hyounpark says in case there are worms?!)* sort plums - only the intact ones make it through
* cook plums until just soft enough to pit
* pit
* weigh the puree, add 40% sugar
* cook, skimming off scum, until it passes the spoon test
* cool
* find a storage container to put the jam in in the fridge
* put on yogurt and toast ad nauseum because I have not committed to buying the whole kit for Proper Jam Making that would let the jam last longer than a few weeks in the fridge
At least our neighbors are equally meh about Proper Jamming so I feel less bad about not doing it, LOL. Still, I did take a cup and a half of yesterday's puree and turned it into a plum version of my favorite roasted applesauce cake for yesterday's block party, and it went smashingly; I was barely able to snag a piece for H and I to split!
Between the cake success and the tofu triumph and lovely August tomatoes marinating in a pool of olive oil and mint and salt and their own juices, I'm proud of these recent food feats. Now to figure out what I'm doing with the pork belly (for dinner tonight). Probably something that can get topped with some of the plum jam, heh.
wednesday reads and things
Aug. 6th, 2025 06:11 pmisisWhat I've recently finished reading:
Tombland by C. J. Sansom, the last of the Shardlake books. It's massive, I think the longest of these books, with a very long historical essay at the end which I'm slowly reading through. It's very firmly set within a historical event, namely Kett's Rebellion of 1549. Which is probably why it's so long. While some of the other books in the series include actual events such as the execution of Anne Boleyn or King Henry VIII's Progress to York, those are all mostly backdrop to the mystery plot. Here the plot is interwoven with the rebellion - actually kind of oddly, because it's really plot plot plot plot REBELLION REBELLION plot REBELLION, where suddenly the ostensible activity Shardlake's undertaking is put on the back-burner because of REBELLION, and it's mostly dropped until very near the end where the villain does a somewhat clunky exposition explaining everything. Not the smoothest of these books for sure, but still quite interesting, with great characters as usual.
What I'm reading now:
While I'm waiting for some holds to come in at the library, I started reading George Orwell's 1984, partly because one of the people I subscribe to on Substack (Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance) is hosting a group read of it. I haven't read it since I read it in college, for a class on "Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature", so it's pretty interesting to revisit. (And terrifying. Also, terrifying.)
Still watching:
We're getting close to the end of S2 of Arcane. I amused myself by abruptly recognizing Maddie's voice as Suvi in Mass Effect: Andromeda (Katy Townsend, typecast as a lesbian, I guess!). Then I checked the cast list and realized there are really so many actors I have heard in other things! But the only other one I recognized was Shohreh Aghdashloo, because of course I did, how can you not? (And hee, she was in Mass Effect (3) as well!)
Still playing:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which is finally getting a little less linear. I set the difficulty one step down (I was on normal=3/5, set it to 2) and it's much kinder - I still get killed a few times by the toughest enemies at the end of each quest before I kill them and prevail, but that's okay.
Tombland by C. J. Sansom, the last of the Shardlake books. It's massive, I think the longest of these books, with a very long historical essay at the end which I'm slowly reading through. It's very firmly set within a historical event, namely Kett's Rebellion of 1549. Which is probably why it's so long. While some of the other books in the series include actual events such as the execution of Anne Boleyn or King Henry VIII's Progress to York, those are all mostly backdrop to the mystery plot. Here the plot is interwoven with the rebellion - actually kind of oddly, because it's really plot plot plot plot REBELLION REBELLION plot REBELLION, where suddenly the ostensible activity Shardlake's undertaking is put on the back-burner because of REBELLION, and it's mostly dropped until very near the end where the villain does a somewhat clunky exposition explaining everything. Not the smoothest of these books for sure, but still quite interesting, with great characters as usual.
What I'm reading now:
While I'm waiting for some holds to come in at the library, I started reading George Orwell's 1984, partly because one of the people I subscribe to on Substack (Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance) is hosting a group read of it. I haven't read it since I read it in college, for a class on "Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature", so it's pretty interesting to revisit. (And terrifying. Also, terrifying.)
Still watching:
We're getting close to the end of S2 of Arcane. I amused myself by abruptly recognizing Maddie's voice as Suvi in Mass Effect: Andromeda (Katy Townsend, typecast as a lesbian, I guess!). Then I checked the cast list and realized there are really so many actors I have heard in other things! But the only other one I recognized was Shohreh Aghdashloo, because of course I did, how can you not? (And hee, she was in Mass Effect (3) as well!)
Still playing:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which is finally getting a little less linear. I set the difficulty one step down (I was on normal=3/5, set it to 2) and it's much kinder - I still get killed a few times by the toughest enemies at the end of each quest before I kill them and prevail, but that's okay.
[Daf Yomi] Maseches Avoda Zara, perek 3 Kol HaTzlamim
Aug. 6th, 2025 07:09 pmlannamichaelsWhat images are used as avoda zarah, and can you benefit from things that have previously been used for avodah zarah? If so, what sorts of things and what needs to be done first, and who has to do them. Still a fun time!
( Read more... )
humans: always and forever Like This (affectionate)
Aug. 6th, 2025 10:08 pmkaberettFor Redactle reasons, yesterday I wound up working my way through Wikipedia's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities.
This turned out not to be helpful for Terrible Game Purposes, but it did mean that I came across a city in Anatolia, Turkey, "founded by the Phrygians in at least 1000 BC[E], although it has been estimated to be older than 4,000 years old".
The name of this city? Eskişehir.
"Eski" is the Turkish (and possibly Turkic?) word for "old" (antonym of "new" -- antonym of "young" is a different word). "Şehir" means "city".
We are so good at this.
but of course, books
Aug. 6th, 2025 02:19 pmjazzfishOh hey, I meant to write this all up last week. Well. It's more interesting this week.
What are you reading now?
The Count of Monte Cristo, translated by Robin Buss. Someone, presumably on Mastodon, recommended this translation specifically a few years ago, and I made a note of that but not of why. An internet search reveals that it's the only translation of the complete book; all others are working from anabridgement bowdlerization from 1846.
It's great, of course. The Three Musketeers is Dumas's most famous novel, but I would bet money that there have been more adaptations and retellings of Monte Cristo. It's a universal story. Heck, The Crow is a Monte Cristo retelling.
I read it once in the late nineties and enjoyed it. Sometime in childhood I read the chapter detailing Edmond's escape from the Chateau d'If, where he disguises himself as the dead abbé to get the jailers to carry him outside. I froze in delicious terror at the absolutely chilling line "The sea is the graveyard of the Chateau d'If." Unclear why I didn't seek out the rest of the book at the time, when that one chapter was so great.
What did you just finish reading?
Emily Tesh's latest, The Incandescent, about a teacher at a contemporary Magic School. It's spectacular. It's not quite as vehement as Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy but it still gets in some solid criticism of The System, and I think the worldbuilding hangs together a bit better than Scholomance's. It shares with Scholomance a feeling that the latter third is suddenly very different, but in Incandescent that's more obvious and with a very very good reason. Highly recommended. I suspect I shall reread soonish so I can figure out whether I think it all hangs together metaphorically as well as ... whatever the opposite of metaphorically is, in-the-world-of-the-book.
(I have a theory, which is by no means an original theory, that if a writer does not consciously direct her themes and metaphors they will tend to reinforce the prevailing social order of the time she is writing in, which may or not be a desired result.)
Before that, Elizabeth Bear's Lotus Kingdoms trilogy. These are ... fine? The characters are great (I don't entirely believe Chaeri's heel-turn but that might just be me), the first book has a lot of moving everyone into position but once they're there the trilogy does not drag. I think this just caught me at a moment when I am spectacularly disinterested in powerful people complaining about how stressful it is to be powerful, and there is a lot of that. But: if you're looking for some colourful secondary-world fantasy, these are absolutely that, and excellent examples of it.
What do you think you'll read next?
I'm nine chapters into the 117 of Monte Cristo. "Next" seems like a very long ways away. Having said that, I'm carrying around a paperback of Morgan Locke (Laura Jo Mixon)'s 2011 shoulda-been-award-winning SF novel Up Against It in case my devices fail me, so hopefully not that but maybe.
What are you reading now?
The Count of Monte Cristo, translated by Robin Buss. Someone, presumably on Mastodon, recommended this translation specifically a few years ago, and I made a note of that but not of why. An internet search reveals that it's the only translation of the complete book; all others are working from an
It's great, of course. The Three Musketeers is Dumas's most famous novel, but I would bet money that there have been more adaptations and retellings of Monte Cristo. It's a universal story. Heck, The Crow is a Monte Cristo retelling.
I read it once in the late nineties and enjoyed it. Sometime in childhood I read the chapter detailing Edmond's escape from the Chateau d'If, where he disguises himself as the dead abbé to get the jailers to carry him outside. I froze in delicious terror at the absolutely chilling line "The sea is the graveyard of the Chateau d'If." Unclear why I didn't seek out the rest of the book at the time, when that one chapter was so great.
What did you just finish reading?
Emily Tesh's latest, The Incandescent, about a teacher at a contemporary Magic School. It's spectacular. It's not quite as vehement as Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy but it still gets in some solid criticism of The System, and I think the worldbuilding hangs together a bit better than Scholomance's. It shares with Scholomance a feeling that the latter third is suddenly very different, but in Incandescent that's more obvious and with a very very good reason. Highly recommended. I suspect I shall reread soonish so I can figure out whether I think it all hangs together metaphorically as well as ... whatever the opposite of metaphorically is, in-the-world-of-the-book.
(I have a theory, which is by no means an original theory, that if a writer does not consciously direct her themes and metaphors they will tend to reinforce the prevailing social order of the time she is writing in, which may or not be a desired result.)
Before that, Elizabeth Bear's Lotus Kingdoms trilogy. These are ... fine? The characters are great (I don't entirely believe Chaeri's heel-turn but that might just be me), the first book has a lot of moving everyone into position but once they're there the trilogy does not drag. I think this just caught me at a moment when I am spectacularly disinterested in powerful people complaining about how stressful it is to be powerful, and there is a lot of that. But: if you're looking for some colourful secondary-world fantasy, these are absolutely that, and excellent examples of it.
What do you think you'll read next?
I'm nine chapters into the 117 of Monte Cristo. "Next" seems like a very long ways away. Having said that, I'm carrying around a paperback of Morgan Locke (Laura Jo Mixon)'s 2011 shoulda-been-award-winning SF novel Up Against It in case my devices fail me, so hopefully not that but maybe.
[embodiment] physio notes!
Aug. 5th, 2025 11:05 pmkaberettToday was Lower Limb Class #2, as ongoing follow-up for the most recent ankle reinjury. (On which status is: still a biiiit weaker when I'm pushing to limits, but not really noticeable in day-to-day life, e.g. I'm no longer regularly wincing when I jar it getting off a bike; definitely still feeling the work up the outside of my right leg when doing e.g. isometric holds on double heel raises.)
I am very amused by how "???!!!" the physios got when I tried to faint from things that "shouldn't" have been significant cardio and indeed aren't by my standards for cardio but crucially involved a lot of moving around and position changes while upright: sit-to-stand, lunges, crab-walking with knees bent. Apparently I have carefully selected for exercise done while seated or prone for really solid reasons, i.e. that would be the orthostatic hypotension. Which I apparently hadn't told the physios about as its own thing. ...whoops.
( notes )
Unfinished Tales
Aug. 5th, 2025 11:48 pmtcpipI find myself in the situation where I have a number of "almost finished" diverse projects nearing completion and several social activities worthy of mention, but without a common and unifying theme. The first involves an essay I'm composing out of pure love following several Shakespearean events which my mind raises the question: "Why Shakespeare?" After all, there were many excellent playwrights and other artists during the English Renaissance, but here we are still looking toward The Bard almost five hundred years later. It is an extraordinary achievement by any measure, and I have a few thoughts on the matter which I will circulate in the near future. Also in the "coming soon" category is a review of "Bleak Squad" at the Queenscliff Town Hall, a sort of 90s supergroup made up from members of Dirty Three, The Bad Seeds, Magic Dirt, and Art of Fighting, which I attended with Kate R., who rather delightfully took me out to see them and spend an evening at the 19th century Vue Grand Hotel (their website is so bad I won't link it). Band member Mick Harvey was also present at the lodgings, and I took the opportunity to mention how much I liked his work in "The Birthday Party". The overnight stay was also an opportunity to visit my old friend Lyle A., who now lives in the region, and also to see the famous "Black Lighthouse", apparently one of only four in the world to have such a hue.
On the RPG side of things, I notably joined Liz, Karl, Gavin, Phil, and Dan for an in-person session of "Dragonbane" on Sunday. This game is derived from the almost-mythic "Drakar och Demoner" Swedish RPG from the early 1980s, which itself was "very heavily" derived from Chaosium's Magic World booklet from Worlds of Wonder. The latest incarnation still shows these roots, albeit with some newer innovations, but still with a great deal of style and design elegance. The day previous, my dear friend from Ningxia, Dr Yanping, graced my home for lunch with Kate R., and Mel S., as well (why am I always surrounded by such fabulous women?), where I experimented with an Italian-Chinese fusion cuisine. Yanping has been away from Australia for over a year, so it was a real delight to see her again, and I'm very pleased that she'll be here for an extended period, having acquired some gainful employment at Monash University. Somehow I neglected to mention attendance at Brenda L's birthday gathering in recent entries where I played the role of waiter and provider of cocktails; especially excellent conversation with Brenda, Fiona C., Matthew C. and others. This all does sound like an extensive social life, and to be fair, that has taken a good portion of the past several days. Journaling does provide a gentle reminder that I do have other serious ("boring but important") work to catch up on; the batteries have been recharged.
On the RPG side of things, I notably joined Liz, Karl, Gavin, Phil, and Dan for an in-person session of "Dragonbane" on Sunday. This game is derived from the almost-mythic "Drakar och Demoner" Swedish RPG from the early 1980s, which itself was "very heavily" derived from Chaosium's Magic World booklet from Worlds of Wonder. The latest incarnation still shows these roots, albeit with some newer innovations, but still with a great deal of style and design elegance. The day previous, my dear friend from Ningxia, Dr Yanping, graced my home for lunch with Kate R., and Mel S., as well (why am I always surrounded by such fabulous women?), where I experimented with an Italian-Chinese fusion cuisine. Yanping has been away from Australia for over a year, so it was a real delight to see her again, and I'm very pleased that she'll be here for an extended period, having acquired some gainful employment at Monash University. Somehow I neglected to mention attendance at Brenda L's birthday gathering in recent entries where I played the role of waiter and provider of cocktails; especially excellent conversation with Brenda, Fiona C., Matthew C. and others. This all does sound like an extensive social life, and to be fair, that has taken a good portion of the past several days. Journaling does provide a gentle reminder that I do have other serious ("boring but important") work to catch up on; the batteries have been recharged.
Coda Read
Aug. 5th, 2025 07:16 amsteepholmI love me a ghost story coda. Their general purpose of course is to disrupt the border between the story world and our own by suggesting, explicitly or not (not being the classier option), that we can't simply shut the book and pack our fears safely away - that some may leak out.
Often codas take the form of reversion to a frame story, in which the main narrative has been related as a diverting fiction or country tale, only to have some unexpected evidence of its truth appear once all seems safely concluded. That device has probably been overused, though.
My favourite coda will probably always be the final paragraph (or really, sentence) of M.R. James's 'Casting the Runes', which has an austere minimalism that would have made John Cage proud:
That said, I also like the far more garrulous use of the frame story in Lafcadio Hearn's retelling of 'The Romance of the Peony Lantern', under the title 'A Passional Karma'. It ought not to work, because unlike the slightly trite device of discovering some evidence that the story was true after all, it does quite the opposite - seemingly mocking the narrator for having been drawn in by the fiction. And yet, this still manages to give a creepy effect, at least to me, for reasons I can't quite formulate. Perhaps you can?
Anyway, I recommend the story, coda and all.
Often codas take the form of reversion to a frame story, in which the main narrative has been related as a diverting fiction or country tale, only to have some unexpected evidence of its truth appear once all seems safely concluded. That device has probably been overused, though.
My favourite coda will probably always be the final paragraph (or really, sentence) of M.R. James's 'Casting the Runes', which has an austere minimalism that would have made John Cage proud:
Only one detail shall be added. At Karswell's sale a set of Bewick, sold with all faults, was acquired by Harrington. The page with the woodcut of the traveller and the demon was, as he had expected, mutilated. Also, after a judicious interval, Harrington repeated to Dunning something of what he had heard his brother say in his sleep: but it was not long before Dunning stopped him.
That said, I also like the far more garrulous use of the frame story in Lafcadio Hearn's retelling of 'The Romance of the Peony Lantern', under the title 'A Passional Karma'. It ought not to work, because unlike the slightly trite device of discovering some evidence that the story was true after all, it does quite the opposite - seemingly mocking the narrator for having been drawn in by the fiction. And yet, this still manages to give a creepy effect, at least to me, for reasons I can't quite formulate. Perhaps you can?
Anyway, I recommend the story, coda and all.
doing things, mostly foodish
Aug. 4th, 2025 05:29 pmjazzfishWhen I hit up the dollar store for wax paper for my Ogre gluing, so I wouldn't drip glue on everything, I also picked up a long roll of aluminum foil. For reasons that are unclear to me the grocery store will only sell foil in rolls that are slightly shorter than the short side of a (half-pan) baking sheet.
Normally when I make bacon I do it in the oven, on a baking sheet covered in foil. Normally I have to fold up the edges of the foil manually. Normally some bacon grease leaks out anyway and I have to carefully clean the baking sheet.
This morning I used the long roll of foil, and it covered the entire sheet with overlap on all sides. Near as I can tell no grease leaked through.
It's kind of astounding how having the right tools can improve one's life.
Ogres remaining: one that requires surgery, five more that require colour choice and thought, and three that require both. I'm honestly a little startled that it's almost done. This has been an enjoyable project: it's not so fiddly that I get frustrated at my inability to do fine motor work, and it's producing tangible objects.
This afternoon I decanted the vanilla extract I put up last summer. I'm less optimistic about this. The cinnamon extract I did in the fall was cinnamony enough but also pretty harsh, due I assume to using cheap vodka. Half the vanilla is likewise cheap vodka (though a different kind), so maybe that will turn out alright; the other half is spiced rum, and I have no idea how well that will do. At least it's only a dozen small bottles, instead of the twenty-odd of cinnamon that I need to do something with.
French toast tomorrow morning should give me some indication of quality, at least.
I also spent an hour or so scraping/squeezing "caviar" out of the beans to make vanilla sugar. This was an extremely annoying process that I do not recommend to anyone: removing sticky goop from slick wet beans is not a good time. But I am now prepared to make an awful lot of vanilla sugar. Just need to figure out where I'm storing it. Probably in one of my tall plastic bins: making one smell faintly of vanilla is unlikely to be a downside.
Next steps there are to let the scraped caviar sit until tomorrow so it dries out (possibly with an assist from the oven on low heat), blending it all into a small amount of sugar, and then mixing that into the full amount. The recipe I have calls for "one cup of sugar per vanilla bean". Online varies between one and two cups per bean, so that's a good starting point. Thing is, I undercounted woefully last time; I used eighty vanilla beans in the extract. These are small beans, so, sure, cut that in half. I used forty full beans to make the extract, that's twenty cups of sugar, at 200g a cup that's four kilos of vanilla sugar. That ... should tide me over for awhile. Get some pint or half-pint jars, that's much of xmas sorted.
Then I have the mostly-empty bean pods that I should do something with. I'm currently letting them air dry as well. I guess I could snip them up small and mix them into some (more) sugar.
Onward.
Normally when I make bacon I do it in the oven, on a baking sheet covered in foil. Normally I have to fold up the edges of the foil manually. Normally some bacon grease leaks out anyway and I have to carefully clean the baking sheet.
This morning I used the long roll of foil, and it covered the entire sheet with overlap on all sides. Near as I can tell no grease leaked through.
It's kind of astounding how having the right tools can improve one's life.
Ogres remaining: one that requires surgery, five more that require colour choice and thought, and three that require both. I'm honestly a little startled that it's almost done. This has been an enjoyable project: it's not so fiddly that I get frustrated at my inability to do fine motor work, and it's producing tangible objects.
This afternoon I decanted the vanilla extract I put up last summer. I'm less optimistic about this. The cinnamon extract I did in the fall was cinnamony enough but also pretty harsh, due I assume to using cheap vodka. Half the vanilla is likewise cheap vodka (though a different kind), so maybe that will turn out alright; the other half is spiced rum, and I have no idea how well that will do. At least it's only a dozen small bottles, instead of the twenty-odd of cinnamon that I need to do something with.
French toast tomorrow morning should give me some indication of quality, at least.
I also spent an hour or so scraping/squeezing "caviar" out of the beans to make vanilla sugar. This was an extremely annoying process that I do not recommend to anyone: removing sticky goop from slick wet beans is not a good time. But I am now prepared to make an awful lot of vanilla sugar. Just need to figure out where I'm storing it. Probably in one of my tall plastic bins: making one smell faintly of vanilla is unlikely to be a downside.
Next steps there are to let the scraped caviar sit until tomorrow so it dries out (possibly with an assist from the oven on low heat), blending it all into a small amount of sugar, and then mixing that into the full amount. The recipe I have calls for "one cup of sugar per vanilla bean". Online varies between one and two cups per bean, so that's a good starting point. Thing is, I undercounted woefully last time; I used eighty vanilla beans in the extract. These are small beans, so, sure, cut that in half. I used forty full beans to make the extract, that's twenty cups of sugar, at 200g a cup that's four kilos of vanilla sugar. That ... should tide me over for awhile. Get some pint or half-pint jars, that's much of xmas sorted.
Then I have the mostly-empty bean pods that I should do something with. I'm currently letting them air dry as well. I guess I could snip them up small and mix them into some (more) sugar.
Onward.
Crafting Update, July 2025
Aug. 4th, 2025 12:07 pmalthea_valaraMy pivot table tells me I crafted 16 hours 13 minutes in July, on seven different projects.
Two of those projects were tablet pillows. Like this phone pillow I previously made but a bit bigger:
[Image Description: A crocheted phone stand, made in nautical-colored yarn.]
I am keeping the first tablet pillow for myself, and the second one is for my older sister, who requested one.
I did 2 hours on my crocheted cardigan. Not much, but I got frustrated with it because... well, I left the ends rather long, so long they tangled with one another AND the working yarn, and it's a pain to try to feed the working yarn through the knot. I need to deal with that this month.
I did 4 hours 38 minutes on a secret project. It's coming along! But I had rather expected to be done with it by now. I lost my momentum with it, and just lost my crafting mojo in general.
I started a gnome as a present for the kidlets, but dropped a stitch and got fed up so put that aside. I am probably going to give up on this plan, and make them snowflakes (if I make anything) instead.
I spent 1 hour 19 minutes making ICONS! It's rare I do image manipulation, so this definitely deserves to be counted. The icon on this post is one of them.
Finally, I spent 20 minutes working on a knit top. I don't recall why I dropped it (literally - the yarn is on the floor under my desk, sigh). Probably got frustrated for one reason or another.
I'm... a bit sad my output is slowing down. I mean, I still did craft quite a bit! But I definitely notice a difference in my oomph. Guess this is my new normal.
Two of those projects were tablet pillows. Like this phone pillow I previously made but a bit bigger:
[Image Description: A crocheted phone stand, made in nautical-colored yarn.]
I am keeping the first tablet pillow for myself, and the second one is for my older sister, who requested one.
I did 2 hours on my crocheted cardigan. Not much, but I got frustrated with it because... well, I left the ends rather long, so long they tangled with one another AND the working yarn, and it's a pain to try to feed the working yarn through the knot. I need to deal with that this month.
I did 4 hours 38 minutes on a secret project. It's coming along! But I had rather expected to be done with it by now. I lost my momentum with it, and just lost my crafting mojo in general.
I started a gnome as a present for the kidlets, but dropped a stitch and got fed up so put that aside. I am probably going to give up on this plan, and make them snowflakes (if I make anything) instead.
I spent 1 hour 19 minutes making ICONS! It's rare I do image manipulation, so this definitely deserves to be counted. The icon on this post is one of them.
Finally, I spent 20 minutes working on a knit top. I don't recall why I dropped it (literally - the yarn is on the floor under my desk, sigh). Probably got frustrated for one reason or another.
I'm... a bit sad my output is slowing down. I mean, I still did craft quite a bit! But I definitely notice a difference in my oomph. Guess this is my new normal.
recent reading
Aug. 4th, 2025 06:41 amthistleingreyIf curious about Carrie Brownstein's memoir, and if harm to animals is a hard stop, consider not reading the short Aftermath section (that is, after Sleater-Kinney went on extended hiatus in 2006). Ten years after the book's 2015 publication, it's hardly a spoiler that one could skip safely to the epilogue, which doesn't mention animals in briefly sketching how No Cities to Love came about, then closing.
Rolling Stone did an interview with drummer Janet Weiss when she left S-K in 2019.
Rolling Stone did an interview with drummer Janet Weiss when she left S-K in 2019.
Purchase declined: Wrong virtual card
Aug. 4th, 2025 07:41 amlannamichaelsOn the bright side, the advantage of using one-store-only virtual cards lets me know exactly which online restaurant ordering site (orderonlinemenu.com) has the leaky data security, and my credit card automatically denied the fraudulent charge.
Oy.
At least it was just a virtual number stolen, so from the email, it seems like maybe my credit card won't decide to cancel this number and give me a new one if I report the fraud. After the Really Absurd Number Of Times my card number got stolen last year, I had to make a list in a spreadsheet of which card and which virtual numbers on which cards were used on which sites, so I could update them. So even if not, this process is easier than it was. But the email just says to lock the virtual card number so it can't be fraudulently charged. Which it already has been.
This is just so annoying.
Dovi Diaries: New Kid by Yeshaya Suval (2024)
Aug. 3rd, 2025 06:09 pmlannamichaelsA Diary Of A Wimpy Kid knockoff published by Artscroll, and is exactly what you'd expect given its bona fides.
Dovi is a 4th grader at a new school and is having problems fitting in, except we have no reason to believe he's not fitting in, because that's told and not shown in any way, so it's not clear why his teacher sends him to the school therapist rabbi to be told to keep a diary. He misses his old school but we are never given any specifics about his old school or his old friends. Specifics? What specifics?
We don't even get a good idea of how many siblings he has and the age spread (his oldest brother -- probably -- went off to yeshiva in Israel, except considering the age spread of the kids, that's likely high school, but why mention any details?)
He does a lot of unspecified learning, including running a chavrusa program. He gains friends. He has no real problems and is not a wimpy kid. The shenanigans are generic and probably very boring to the target audience, who are used to the many books in this genre already, and except certain things from a confessional diary of a 4th grader at a new school who has to see the school therapist because he's not fitting in. Those things are not in this book.
Overall, I found it very bland. And that's probably the biggest problem.
Because the thing is, I don't like Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. It's better than Captain Underpants, but most things are better than Captain Underpants. All these Wimpy Kid books and that entire segment of midgrade -- I don't like them.
I'm not supposed to like them. They are written to appeal to a midgrade audience, not to the parents of the midgrade audience.
Dovi Diaries was written to appeal to adults.
But you know what? I've read worse from Artscroll.