cimorene

Google's AI very helpfully auto-generated these gifs from the pictures I took of him playing the other day. The ones from videos are cute but unremarkable, but my favorite is the one that captures like one tenth of a second of jumping so it looks like he's angrily and repeatedly kicking some imaginary enemy right behind him.

I eventually finished the annoyingly terribly badly-written pattern project from the 8th time I cast on (I think). There were several times when I had to unknit up to 6 rows to fix a mistake because I couldn't figure out how to do this using a crochet hook for individual columns of stitches, and I had to do that one stitch at a time with both ends of the needle rather than taking the needle out, ripping stitches, and then threading it back in, because picking the stitches back up correctly like that was too hard.

That's why I let a number of minor errors stand: ( img x3 )

But I love this and it seems to be an appropriate replacement for my previous large (enough to go around the head and neck three times) cowl and the merino is significantly softer, and the brioche significantly squishier, than the old one's chunky alpaca seed stitch. I did manage to wear it today, but it wasn't really necessary to have a scarf that heavy, so I probably won't get to thoroughly test it out until next fall, though. I also did get a new Ravelry usericon out of the day.

My wife said, "You can come to ours and we can do it for you,"

and I said, "We can make food,"

but then MIL said, "I have food too...",

and on autopilot, like an idiot, I said, "Or we can eat at yours and do it on your computer," completely forgetting she lives in the boonies & wants us to take an hour long bus trip home.

Then it turns out she doesn't have food and wants to spend an hour in the supermarket first.

One of us needs to learn some assertiveness. Or I could think before I speak...

Current Music: I just wanted to make salsa and knit!!!,

Anybody who noted the mildew-smelling rug issue may be amused to know that in [half] accordance with

harpers_child's suggestion here I spritzed the rug, although after a day drying on the balcony it seemed to be mostly fine, with a fine mist of vodka...

...but as noted in the thread I only had Absolut, so. Yeah, that's the most action that bottle of Absolut has seen in years.

Current Location: liquor we drink: gin and amaretto, period, we cook with sherry & wine, that's it
Current Music: it was just weighing down the bottle cover, technically it's now LESS wasted!,

I started a really good book, David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon, which is about real historical murders.

The problem is that it's depressing to read, because it's about the murders of Osage in Oklahoma within living memory, and even if it were about like, them adopting puppies or triumphing at sporting events, there's unavoidable historical context baggage that's definitely upsetting. (Also, I don't really deal well with suspense. I had to stop reading LOTR like 3 times and go do something else the first time I read the Shelob's lair scene.)

When I started this book, I was reading a couple of other books at the same time in between chunks, but I ran out of stuff I'm into in my immediately accessible (digital) pile of stuff to read. (I'll have to go back to my list of books to read and track down how to buy more of them, and in the meantime I'm running out of fanfiction too.)

Current Music: I don't even have an old fandom to reread right now,

It was perhaps the faintest, wannest smile that ever agitated for a moment the lower half of a human face. The eyes took no part in it. They were as vacant as saucers of milk; but one end of the mouth lifted as might the cold lip of a trout.

—Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast

Current Music: grotesquerie

Sunbeams fall on the bed for most of the morning at this time of year, and the kitties are very appreciative.

Snookums, who has been feeling a little bit more himself in spite of his blood curve being so extreme, has enough spunk to galumph around and/or play once or twice a day now and frequently gets a bit of a spirit of mischief as here, where he keeps opening his mouth and resting his teeth on my hand only to remember that he can't bite down and licking it intently instead (but still with the grabby hands).

snookums

Hey, does anybody remember a post about solutions people use to download fanfiction to read offline from sites other than AO3? I... don't even know where to post this to get a wider response either...

We bought a really nice squishy new long rag rug, but unfortunately it has a faint but perceptible mildew stink clinging to it (one I didn't notice until we got it home because it doesn't emerge until my face is right up next to it like lying on the floor close), which maybe I should have expected since it seems to be made of recycled fabric. Mildew seems to be a smell that most people are way less sensitive to than I am - possibly a mild allergy, although it doesn't make my sinuses burn or hurt or anything (YET?). Not fun when frequently attics and basements are full of the smell and nobody else even seems to notice it, but anyway...

I just washed it at 60° with ordinary detergent, which didn't help at all, so I googled it and it seems I should soak it, perhaps as long as overnight, in vinegar water. I have plenty of white vinegar, but we don't own anything big enough to submerge this rug in except the actual washing machine, which is front-loading. So here I go to figure out how to set it to fill and soak things.

I am a music-listening commuter and have rarely gone out alone without earbuds in my adult life, but I'm also one of those people whose earbuds always break. Regardless of the price point of the earbuds, I have always gone through them at a fantastic rate compared to that of my wife, and regardless of trying to treat the cables better and going through a number of storage methods - the wire inside always broke.

So I've been looking forward to the advent of wireless headphones and the descent of their prices into the affordable range, but I didn't want the giant kind that sit on your head - I still wanted in-ear ones, and they have to be the kind with the little silicone pads, not the molded hard plastic ones like Apple's, which never stay in my ears. I wasn't going to buy the kind that are just two tiny objects with nothing connecting them, because basically, as many people said, just looking at them I'd lost them already. A couple of years ago the sports kind that look like those straps for holding sunglasses on started to appear, but I wasn't too keen on them either; so it was a relief when this kind emerged that's a string with one earbud on each end of it. They drape around the back of the neck and hang on the chest, and I've worn them that way several times already with no problems, but I did think they needed some sort of easy fastener to hold the ends together so they wouldn't fall off when rearranging scarves and collars etc.

Actually the safety necklace fasteners you can get at jewelry-making suppliers would probably be ideal; I've seen 'earbud necklaces' (made from ones that didn't have their own cord) fastened with magnetic beads an inch below the earbud portion, but I'm not quite confident in the magnets' staying power or sure that the magnets wouldn't affect the function. I also thought of the little leather strips with a button or tab in the middle that are designed for holding usb cables coiled, but rather than making one of those I just made a loop and sewed a button to it. It's not exactly difficult to handle, but it is a bit fiddly because I used a small button.

I'm pleased with the result. But I manage to forget every time I do this macrame cord thing exactly how time-consuming it is. This one's really short and it still took two days.

Plus, I'm dubious about the wisdom of having this controller on the cord. It's functional, sure - you don't have to wake your phone up to access the music controls - but I suspect it means they've put a wire back into the cable, which is a recipe for disaster for me. Also it's pretty unwieldy in this position on the cord.

‘A telegram, sir,’ said Jeeves, re-entering the presence.

‘Open it, Jeeves, and read contents. Who is it from?’

‘It is unsigned, sir.’

‘You mean there’s no name at the end of it?’

‘That is precisely what I was endeavouring to convey, sir.’

—PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

The good news: We did Snookums's first blood curve successfully yesterday! His poor little ear isn't happy and at one point he sprayed blood around a bit, but he wasn't too miffed about it.

The bad news: his peak blood glucose was nearly 20 mmol/L (when anything over 17 is cause for concern and we want to try to get below 15).

So he's still on a rather extreme cycle, going from 20ish (YIKES) to 4ish (a pretty healthy level) and back every 12 hours, the poor little snugglebear. I've already switched to the recommended kinds of wet foods and reduced the cats' kibble consumption according to the feline diabetes community wisdom, but not completely removed the dry food yet to avoid any possible backlash.

I'm a bit concerned still, though, because they have been eating much less dry food, and he's been on insulin for several months now.

I can still move on to the next step though, and give him a week or so of testing daily and see if the final removal of kibble does anything in that time.

I almost always remember my dreams when I wake up, ever since I started taking Venlafaxine really, but even more so in the last year or so since the dose went up.

And people I knew from childhood show up really frequently in my dreams - my extended family, most of whom I haven't seen in person for years, family friends and neighbors, and also my middle school friends and girl scout troop members (age ~12-18, which I guess also makes them middle school friends). Not only do I see comparatively little of my high school friends in dreams, whom I mostly didn't have contact with after age 20 or so - I very rarely see more recent acquaintances from my adult life.

My wife's extended family, who have pretty much functioned as my extended family for 15 years now, and her mother, are often referenced but they're usually offscreen. I've made plenty of friends and long-term acquaintances in my adult life... who have mostly not shown up in Dreamland. It's like my long-term memory filled up the cast a long time ago and lost the ability to create new characters????

I'll even dream about things obviously related to my daily life, like about one of the schools where I studied Finnish or one of the schools where I worked, but when I get to the workplace it will be a made-up place that doesn't exist in the real world and the people there will be equally fictional.

But any dream, no matter how unlikely, has decent odds of my parents and sister or my aunts, uncles, and cousins showing up. I guess it's a credit to my parents that all that extended family played such a significant role in my mental life even though they all lived 8, 11, or 14+ hours' drive away...

“What I admire about you, Bridget, is that you have practically no instincts of kindliness.”

—Agatha Christie, Murder Is Easy

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a TINY package, 2 bottles of nail polish, from my favorite Hki salon.

In the past I always have selected pickup-point shipping for orders from her, but she usually downgrades it to the cheaper "maxi letter" shipping if the package is small enough to fit through a door slot in a padded envelope (typically up to 3 bottles will).

Something has changed in how Paypal interfaces with the webstore?? And I didn't get the opportunity to select the shipping method at all this time - it went straight to regular parcel post. I was a bit confused, but I figured it would certainly fit through the letter slot so that wouldn't matter. As far as I'm aware, postal service policy is that packages too big for door slots get a pickup slip but little ones go through the door.

The package didn't arrive and didn't arrive and I also did not get any package slips???

I lost track of time a little bit and I admit I wasn't counting the days, but I figured worst case scenario, a notification would arrive like... a week late? Probably? We HAVE gotten them 20 days late before though, so it's not like the delay was unambiguous.

A full 8 days later, I checked my email for something else and found an electronic reminder of the packing slip THAT I NEVER RECEIVED that had been auto-filtered into my "updates" folder (um... thanks, Google). I was like... WHAT?! It wasn't sent by the postal service, it was some third party reminder service that was like, "Remember, you need the package slip from the delivery service to actually retrieve your package!" There was no actual notification from the postal service directly under it. But then I searched the inbox and an email from the day after I placed the order appeared. It was the first I knew of it, so apparently I must've dismissed a notification without realizing it (so yeah, PARTLY my fault).

I still haven't actually received a package slip in the mail. As far as I'm aware, you are still supposed to get one! I always have before and nobody told me it was about to stop. They're not supposed to ONLY notify you by email, are they? Especially without warning that that's what they're about to start doing??? But anyway, the next day we stop at Citymarket with the postal service to pick it up.

I open this, the electronic (pdf attachment, lol) package notification slip on my phone so that I can show it to the clerk at the service desk... and I suddenly realize that it says "Package will be kept for seven days after delivery and then returned to sender". Sure enough, I squint at the rest of the small print and according to the slip, they've sent my package back to the sender two days before.

I need to contact the salon about it now, which is feeling at this point like more effort than I would've agreed to to get these nail polishes in the first place. But needs must.

In conclusion: For fuck's sake.

The thing I've been putting off calling the doctor about for like over a year is that I've decided I probably definitely do need to get allergy tested because generic post-nasal drip that I've had my whole life is one thing, but the whole issue where occasionally perfume gets near my face and then my throat almost swells closed... well... that's not good and if it got worse it could be like. Very bad. So I should probably consult a GP about it.

Anyway, if she doesn't want to give me allergy testing, which could be useful but maybe not (perfume is always assaulting me in public and as a result I'm often choking delicately with my face swaddled in my scarf on the bus or in the mall or movie theater; wearing a scarf all summer at least gives me slight relief but knowing the ingredient at fault won't help me to avoid it in other people's perfumes - the only thing I can do about other people's perfumes is not go near other people), she may at least have specific antihistamine advice about it.

(I sound matter-of-fact about this state of affairs because it's been like that for years, but in fact just thinking about how much perfume other people wear in public makes me so angry I become incoherent and flaily if I allow myself to dwell on it for more than a second or two; so usually I don't. And there's no point brooding about things one can't do anything about.)

We spent last Saturday afternoon at MIL's summer cottage, and while I didn't notice any breathing difficulties at the time (unlike Wax), I've had a sore throat and irritated sinuses ever since. This serves to remind me that my generic post-nasal-drip reactions to seasonal irritants and dust or whatever are also getting worse with age so I should probably stop putting off the antihistamine discussion.

(Maybe I'll actually make an appointment... sometime... this week... or something.)

When I last wrote about brown fountain pen ink samples, last June, I really had too many of them... or not enough spare easy-to-fill pens lying around... or not enough willingness to dump unused ink out (and do them consecutively, washing the pen in between, I mean), arguably. Ink isn't a precious commodity or anything, so it's just the pure principle of wastefulness that upsets me if I spill it or have to empty it prematurely.

Anyway, that's why it took me that long. That, and I couldn't make up my mind whether to order a new pad of Tomoe River paper or not (I didn't). I loaded a bunch of pens with the first half of the brown ink samples all at once, and then I failed to use all of them up in a timely fashion and didn't have any pens to fill with the second half. Finally this week and last week I've flushed and soaked clean a bunch of pen nibs and filled three pens with the last colors of ink, and made the side-by-side comparison sheet ( here. )

Lucius Pim was not a man I was fond of — in fact, if I had had to choose between him and a cockroach as a companion for a walking-tour, the cockroach would have had it by a short head — but there was no doubt that he had outlined the right policy. His advice was good, and I decided to follow it.

—PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

It's been snowing all day and all last night after raining and sleeting yesterday! I don't expect this will be the last snow of the year, given that was after Easter for the past two years (as I'm fond of complaining.

(I'd say spring flowers are one of the few things I miss about Alabama. My parents' hundred-year oak tree, now dearly departed in the mile-wide tornado a few years ago, was surrounded with hydrangea and azalea bushes big enough for me to nearly get lost in when I was about 10-12 and there was a bed of snapdragons and a bed of mixed irises and tigerlilies, plus big daffodils mixed into several of the edging beds and even a few volunteer patches of them out in the yard for a while that my dad would mow around.

(Daffodils are kind of a traditional Easter flower here in the warmest SW corner of Finland - the archipelago -, but it's too cold for them to actually bloom before Easter unless they're grown indoors in pots, which kind of gives the lie to the whole 'symbol of the awakening spring around us' idea, if you're using artificially grown ones because there in fact is no spring awake around you yet except crocuses and brave grass stems. Also the ones for Easter are very tiny, which makes an even more comically bitter contrast to the size and lushness of daffodil blooms that I associate with the season from Alabama.

(I don't prefer floral landscapes or gardens to green ones, but when it comes to flowers, I strongly prefer big tropical flowers to others. This is an unfortunate preference to have in Finland.)

Speaking of gardens, MIL wants to construct scarecrows this summer. I've never been a party to this before, but doesn't making scarecrows' clothes out of actual fabric then result in that fabric mildewing from the rain? If the scarecrow is in your cornfield, fine, you probably don't see it that often. But if we're talking a little kitchen garden and it's much closer to home, it seems to me that it would be more logical to create the appearance of humanity with weather-safe materials of some kind. MIL and Wax both seemed to find this question bizarre and suggested you could undress the scarecrows for the rain and dress them again later? But that seems like an awful lot of trouble to be always remembering, doesn't it, particularly if it's going to rain frequently? Does anybody have scarecrow wisdom to share, or am I going to have to research this and probably end up on a deep dive into whatever corner of the internet contains fanatical scarecrow-making fandom?

Current Mood: +gpoy,
Current Location: keyword "this place isn't punk rock", -g. way, that's what palm cockatoos always
Current Music: seem to be saying, mom i want to go home, this place isn't punk rock

Hell, it is well-known, hath no fury like a woman who wants her tea and cannot get it.

—PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

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Cimorene

April 2019

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Page Summary

Here's Rowan
eventual triumph, in the form of this superb brioche cowl, over the forces of shit patternwriting
Fuck past me, honestly
off-label and definitely odd
But now I really want to find out what happens...
the faintest, wannest smile that ever agitated for a moment the lower half of a human face
Snookums's animated grabby hands and little kitty knuckles
some kind of ebook converter widget or... something?
mental note in favor of non-post-consumer cotton rugs in future...?
bluetooth earbuds not 100% cordless
📨
Snookums's first glucose curve
dreams: recurring characters
🐊
Cursed by Hermes or some other god of package delivery
I honestly can't decide if this weird and unusual allergy of mine is more or less annoying
the quest for the perfect brown ink redux
the cockroach would have had it by a short head
flowers for spring + scarecrow creation and maintenance issues
☕☕☕

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Style: Willow Weep for Practicalitesque - Practicality (with tweaks) by timeasmymeasure
Resources: Coexistence Alpha

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Page generated 22 Apr 2019 10:41 am

multi-fannish American queer cat & bunny owner in Finland

Entries

Here's Rowan

eventual triumph, in the form of this superb brioche cowl, over the forces of shit patternwriting

Fuck past me, honestly

off-label and definitely odd

But now I really want to find out what happens...

the faintest, wannest smile that ever agitated for a moment the lower half of a human face

Snookums's animated grabby hands and little kitty knuckles

some kind of ebook converter widget or... something?

mental note in favor of non-post-consumer cotton rugs in future...?

bluetooth earbuds not 100% cordless

📨

Snookums's first glucose curve

dreams: recurring characters

🐊

Cursed by Hermes or some other god of package delivery

I honestly can't decide if this weird and unusual allergy of mine is more or less annoying

the quest for the perfect brown ink redux

the cockroach would have had it by a short head

flowers for spring + scarecrow creation and maintenance issues

☕☕☕

Profile

April 2019

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Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags