tag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624Cimorenemulti-fannish American queer cat & bunny owner in FinlandCimorene2024-03-28T18:13:30Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3664642A few favorite bits from last week2024-03-28T18:13:30Z2024-03-28T18:13:30Zpublic0<blockquote>How curious that if you dreamed about boiled rabbit, it meant that sometime in early childhood you had been kissed by a poacher in a railway-carriage, and had forgotten all about it!</blockquote> - EF Benson, <em>Lucia in London</em>, on psychoanalysis<br /><br /><blockquote>And after she told him this, she led him to sit upon a bed covered with such a costly quilt that the Duke of Austria didn’t have its equal.</blockquote> - Chrétien de Troyes, <em>The Knight with the Lion</em><br /><br /><blockquote>"A man who cannot learn his lesson should be bound before the choir screen in church like a lunatic."</blockquote> - Chrétien de Troyes, <em>The Knight with the Lion</em>, giving rise to so many questions and no answers, not even a footnote<br /><br /><blockquote>"The dungheap will always smell, wasps will always sting and hornets buzz, and a cad will always slander and vex others."</blockquote> - Chrétien de Troyes, <em>The Knight with the Lion</em>, on Sir Kay, who was just as much of a jerk in Chrétien as in The Sword in the Stone<br /><br /><blockquote>Luckily she expected nothing better of either of them, so their conduct was in no way a blow or a disappointment to her.</blockquote> - EF Benson, <em>Miss Mapp</em><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3664642" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3664441Reading this week2024-03-27T17:15:10Z2024-03-27T17:15:10Zpublic2Finished:<br /><ol><li>Benson, E.F. <em>Miss Mapp.</em> 1922. The second Mapp & Lucia novel. <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/3664441.html#cutid1">More character analysis of the differences and similarities between Mapp's and Lucia's brands of awful</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></li><br /><br /><li>Chrétien de Troyes. <em>Cligés.</em> I've already mentioned how weirdly like a fixit fanfic this one is, and that actually is quite an interesting fact about it, but it also makes it pretty weird to read, and at times a bit irritating. The end was so incredibly abrupt, though, that was a whole other source of humor.</li><br /><br /><li>Chrétien de Troyes. <em>The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot).</em> This is the third Arthurian romance in the collection, and it's even more fascinating than the previous one. I know from the introductions in this book that this is the only fictional portrayal of marital infidelity by Chrétien, who is otherwise EXTREMELY disapproving of it (as the entire plot of Cligés was written to express). And we know that this one, as is stated explicitly at the beginning, was written on the express orders of his patroness, Marie de Champagne. Apparently she actually dictated the subject matter - the courtly love between Lancelot and Guinevere - and even to an extent the plot. According to the introduction and footnotes, there's some scholarly debate about whether this is a faithful carrying out of her wishes or actually contains an entire layer of satirical snark to express the author's actual distaste for the morality of his characters. And I think the latter is actually what's happening, which is really interesting to notice as you're reading along. But it is pretty subtle!</li><br /><br /><li>Wells, Martha. <em>Artificial Condition.</em> Now that I've read the next couple installments about Murderbot after this one, I still like ART especially much. The sequence where Murderbot visits the disused mine to investigate the disaster on Milu was great, too.</li><br /><br /><li>Wells, Martha. <em>Rogue Protocol.</em> My favorite part of this one was the fantastic fight scenes with the combat bots and just how fun they were to read. That's quite funny, because I often just skip fight scenes entirely, even in print. I'm interested to see what the visual design for Miki is going to look like.</li><br /><br /><li>Wells, Martha. <em>Exit Strategy.</em> The images of the hotels and the new scenes with Gurathin and Pin-Lee in this book were really great. The hotel hacks and the whole description of using the maintenance system and the transportation pods against the GrayCris representatives were so memorable that I actually sort of remembered that part even though I'd managed to forget most of the intervening context and details in the couple of years since I first read it. </li><br /><br /><li>Wells, Martha. "Compulsory" and "Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory". I read these too. Nice little bits of context.</li></ol><br /><br />In progress:<br /><br /><ol><li>Wells, Martha. <em>Network Effect.</em> I was pretty sure I had read this before, but as I started reading it today... I don't think I have actually? Only two chapters in so far. Time may tell.</li><br /><br /><li>Benson, EF. <em>Lucia in London.</em> This one has provided some more brilliant character portraits and inspired me to look up <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/oxford-bags-pants">Oxford bags</a>, which I had read about plenty before. I knew that "Oxford bags" were trousers worn at Oxford, and that they were baggy/loose/slouchy, and that this was both trendy/youthful and potentially scandalous (depending on the context). But the following passages from this book inspired me to go looking for further visual evidence:<br /><br /><blockquote>There was a new suit which he had not worn yet, rather daring, for the trousers, dark fawn, were distinctly of Oxford cut, and he felt quite boyish as he looked at them. He had ordered them in a moment of reckless sartorial courage[... .]<br />[...]<br />(Were Oxford trousers meant to turn up at the bottom? He thought not: and how small these voluminous folds made your feet look.)<br />[...]<br />The odious Piggy, it is true, burst into a squeal of laughter and cried, “Oh, Mr. Georgie, I see you’ve gone into long frocks[.]"</blockquote><br /><br />And, in short, it turns out that while some Oxford bags were merely baggy trousers, in general they were basically like palazzo pants of the 1920s-30s! There's a lot of variation under this term, with some looking more or less like some standard 1970s trousers (apart from the waist), and others more like divided skirts.</li><br /><br /><li>Boron, Robert de. <em>Merlin and the Grail: The Trilogy of Arthurian Romances: Joseph of Arimathea - Merlin - Perceval.</em> (Bryant, trans.) 2001. Original date of publication: 1199. I read one page of Joseph of Arimathea and, perceiving that it was going to all take place immediately after the death of Jesus, skipped to Merlin. I'm sure it's very interesting to see the 1st century CE through the eyes of French poets of the 12th century, but I might have to be in a different sort of mood than the mood for reading Arthurian romance. After the Chrétien de Troyes I've read, I was pleasantly surprised by how riveted I was by the beginning of <em>Merlin</em>. Annnnnnd also unpleasantly surprised by just how much more shockingly loathesome the misogyny of the medieval society and morality was, <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___2" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/3664441.html#cutid2">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___2" aria-live="assertive"></div> But my favorite surprise-lol moment in this book so far has been this:<br /><br /><blockquote>"[G]o in search of a land called Northumberland, a land covered in great forests, a place strange even to its own inhabitants, for there are parts where no man has ever been."</blockquote></li><br /><br /><li>Chrétien de Troyes. <em>The Knight with the Lion (Yvain).</em> The amazing premise is that there exists a magical forest where there's a magical spring (to be reached only after you find the house of a specific guy who is a really good host, and he gives you dinner and you stay the night, and then he gives you directions there the next day), and next to the spring is a stone bowl carved out of emerald with rubies for feet, and a dipper, and if you pour a dipper of the water onto the stone, immediately a huge storm with so much lightning you can't see straight will rise up out of nowhere, destroying a bunch of trees in the forest. And then as soon as you do this a knight on horseback will gallop up and attack you in revenge for having destroyed his forest. So this happens to Calogrenant, and the knight defeats him soundly and then knocks him off his horse and takes it and just leaves. So because Calogrenant is his first cousin, to avenge his shame Yvain decides to go do exactly the same thing. He does, but he defeats the knight, and then pursues him through the gates of a castle and unhesitatingly kills him! Okay!!</li></ol><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3664441" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3664368So that's how that happens.2024-03-26T20:35:29Z2024-03-26T20:35:56Zpublic0I accidentally uglified the thick wool boot socks that I picked up to make in order to clear my mind from picking a fair isle project.<br /><br />I hadn't really planned them in advance and I made a couple of impulsive color changes which don't mesh well with the textured pattern, but by the time that was obvious, I didn't want to lose the time I'd spent. Sometimes you'd rather have ugly socks than increase your sock-knitting time by an hour or so. <br /><br />Boot socks are rarely seen in their entirety, since the only time you wear them is when it's cold, and just the foot or just the top of the cuff won't be as obvious. The funny thing is that I'm now seriously considering making a second pair, non-ugly, before starting the fair isle project. There's still plenty of sock yarn. It's already warmed up enough that it's almost certain nobody will be wearing boot socks until next winter, though.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3664368" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3663630Exciting and vivid descriptive passages from Miss Mapp (1922, England)2024-03-25T14:57:38Z2024-03-25T15:03:08Zpublic2EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels, previously mentioned a couple of times, have not only enlightened me about quaint bits of vocabulary and lifestyle and politics so far, but have also conveyed some fascinating new images of people of the time! <br /><br />I am enchanted by 1920s fashion and have been since childhood, so these haven't introduced any absolutely new styles to me, except for a "Prince of Wales's cloak", which I can't find any other results for, but conjecture to be the long blue velvet coat worn by the Prince of Wales at the coronation of the monarch - images available of the current incumbent wearing the style and also of his predecessor at Elizabeth II's coronation in the 40s; the text must be referring to the prince who abdicated to allow E2's father to take the throne, the one who liked Nazis. But that's not what I meant to talk about. What I meant to talk about were these fantastic descriptions of fashion and interior decor.<br /><br /><ol><li><blockquote>The decoration of the studio was even more appalling than might have been expected. There was a German stove in the corner made of pink porcelain, the rafters and roof were painted scarlet, the walls were of magenta distemper and the floor was blue. In the corner was a very large orange-coloured screen. The walls were hung with specimens of Irene’s art, there was a stout female with no clothes on at all, whom it was impossible not to recognize as being Lucy; there were studies of fat legs and ample bosoms, and on the easel was a picture, evidently in process of completion, which represented a man.</blockquote></li><br /><br />This studio belongs to an eccentric socialist artist, a gentlewoman who smokes like a chimney and spits like a man, to our narrator's dismay. The first association the description brings to mind for me are American advertisement illustrations for midcentury bathroom fixtures, from that period (started in the 1930s actually) when sinks and toilets and tubs came in a rainbow of colors, and to sell them they had some absolutely wild pictures with brilliant colors on the walls and the floors as well as the fixtures, and weird carpets and curtains and bows and things like that. I've seen 1960s and 1970s features from magazines on decor with similar color schemes, but only for bedrooms. This is an absolutely gobsmacking mental image that I'm dying to see on film.<br /><br /><li><blockquote>She had an old wide-awake hat jammed down on her head, a tall collar and stock, a large loose coat, knickerbockers and grey stockings.</blockquote></li><br /><br />This is the artist in question. She always dresses like this, we learn, and at another time the narrator refers to the style as "like a jockey". You can see snapshots of women from the period in knickerbocker outfits like this, usually for some kind of sports (although this was not the dominant outfit for sports in the 20s, but knickerbockers or jodphurs were the trousers worn for horseback riding) - the easiest to find and most widespread are of Chinese American actress and fashion icon Anna May Wong. But because I've seen so few images of this, and encountered it so rarely in the literature I've read from the period before, I wasn't sure how widespread this outfit really was. The idea that it's a suitable costume for an eccentric revolutionary artist type is pleasing to know. (PS: the Quaker Oats man's hat is a wide-awake hat.)<br /><br /><li><blockquote>[...]looking quainter than ever in corduroys and mauve stockings with an immense orange scarf bordered with pink.</blockquote></li><br /><br />The same person in winter. Interesting that even winter did not seem to be cause for full-length trousers. <br /><br /><li><blockquote>Without being in the least effeminate, Mr. Wyse this morning looked rather like a modern Troubadour. He had a velveteen coat on, a soft, fluffy, mushy tie which looked as if made of Shirley poppies, very neat knickerbockers, brown stockings with blobs, like the fruit of plane trees, dependent from elaborate “tops,” and shoes with a cascade of leather frilling covering the laces. He might almost equally well be about to play golf over putting-holes on the lawn as the guitar.</blockquote></li><br /><br />A completely different character. This one isn't considered an eccentric at all; everybody looks up to him, in fact, as a member of an Old County Family whose sister is married to an Italian count. This reminds me of the outfits Oscar Wilde wore.</ol><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3663630" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3663403fair isle decision fatigue2024-03-24T14:43:29Z2024-03-24T14:43:29Zpublic6I've been meaning to get into Fair Isle knitting for absolutely YEARS. I've made a few stranded colorwork projects in that time, and I even made a Fair Isle hat a couple of years ago using bits and bobs that we had around, which was intended to be the first of many projects. However, the hat was disappointing because it came out too large for either of us to wear and the color scheme wasn't all that could be wished. It was easy to go back to making other things, since I have such a long list of single-color sweaters that I <strike>need</strike> want at any time. <br /><br />Since I recently became fed up with cables, though, and it became warm enough that I can only wear a few of my lightweight sweaters at work, it seemed like an opportunity to try out something else. I spent a bunch of time trying to pick a better first project, this time. After last attempt, I realized there was a real risk of not liking the colors if I tried to either make do with only colors I had, or make up my own color scheme without a lot of care (the standard method in Fair Isle knitting is to make swatches, but you should start with the yarn skeins in front of you! And I can't actually find any Finnish yarn stores stocking Shetland yarn. I may order some from Germany or the Netherlands in my next project. In the meantime I'm using Finnish and Norwegian wool of a similar type, so the product will not technically be a Fair Isle garment). Since last Thursday I've been in a whirlwind trying to decide what to make next. I was going back and forth between trying to look for a design, and then going through trying to decide which colors to swap out, and then slowly changing my mind and looking for a different design for those colors... and then swapping more of the colors for the new design... it was hours and hours and I filled up my cart at online Finnish yarn stores like six times before I had to take a break last night and start knitting some plain socks instead. <br /><br />This morning I decided to purchase a pattern with good instructions and follow its yarn colors, so I bought the <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/starnkeeker">Starnkeeker vest pattern by the Scottish designer Kate Davies</a>. I've had a lot of her designs in my wish list for years, but I think this might be the first one I actually make. This design only has four colors and I stuck pretty close to her example colors. I have learned today that Ysolda Teague has some good material, online classes on stranded knitting and choosing colors, which I may make use of for my next project (I wasn't completely convinced by the motifs in the design, and I didn't want to fuss with replacing them with different motifs until my second project). <br /><br />My ultimate Fair Isle goals are <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-prince-of-waless-jersey">The Prince of Wales painting sweater</a>, the <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/voe-vest">Voe vest</a> by Mary Jane Mucklestone (but it would need modification because it's written for DK), <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/peigi">Peigi</a> by Alice Starmore, and <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chestnut-9">Chestnut</a>, <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/magpie-fairisle-cardigan">Magpie</a>, and <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/yell-2">Yell</a> by Marie Wallin. I mean, those are the ones I want the most. There are more on my list.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3663403" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3662894The past is a foreign country2024-03-22T22:12:25Z2024-03-23T07:40:23Zpublic5I've learned a few things by accident reading <em>Miss Mapp</em> by EF Benson, published in 1922 in England, which have made me do a double-take.<br /><br /><ol><li><blockquote>“Baffling,” in fact, was a word that constantly made short appearances in Miss Mapp’s vocabulary, though its retention for a whole year over one subject was unprecedented. But never yet had “baffled” sullied her wells of pure undefiled English.</blockquote><br /><br />Apparently "baffled" and "baffling" were controversial new vocabulary in provincial England at the beginning of the 1920s!<br /></li><br /><li><blockquote>Of course they both kept summer-time, whereas most of Tilling utterly refused (except when going by train) to alter their watches because Mr. Lloyd George told them to;</blockquote><br /><br />Apparently the institution of Daylight Savings had die-hard opponents at large who refused to acknowledge it.<br /></li><br /><li><blockquote>his intolerance of any who believed in ghosts, microbes or vegetarianism,</blockquote><br /><br />I have to conclude that this was a cultural moment in which this was a plausible combination of things to reject as dubious or revolutionary, as opposed to the passage being intended to illustrate the character in question being completely bonkers.<br /></li><br /></ol><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3662894" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3662725Books read2024-03-20T12:34:20Z2024-03-20T15:47:09Zpublic4<ol><li>Martha Wells - All Systems Red. Finished this for only the second time since I first read the series! I am in general a rereader, but the series is still somewhat new. It's interesting to see what I remembered and what I forgot. Overall, I was impressed again by just how neatly the plot is developed, and all those early amusing moments of characterization. I amused myself picturing things and trying to vary how I pictured them - it's not that I DON'T picture as I read normally, but the images are often a bit nebulous and disconnected, definitely not movie-like. I don't typically imagine an entire photographic-style setting. I made a bit of an effort this time. Also realized I have been picturing Meera Syal, who plays the sneaky brown sister Veerin in The Wheel of Time, all along as Dr Mensah. Wax checked the casting, and it's obviously not her - but Noma should be really good.</li><br /><li>EF Benson - Queen Lucia. 1920. As mentioned last week, this is the first novel in the so-called "Mapp and Lucia" series of 1920s rural English comedies of manners by the then-popular novelist. They have been adapted twice for British television, which was how I first heard of them, but I enjoyed this a lot. The novel has a masterful and hilariously understated evocation of several exasperating types of foible, including those of the titular character, who is a type of person I absolutely hate (what I called Fake Nice as a child, but this one's also controlling and hypocritical: my parents were very active in the Unitarian Universalist church and other social groups, so I had ample opportunity to observe several people with these qualities, though none whose characters contained as much united awfulness as Lucia's does). You could say she's a type that I love to hate, though, of fictional characters at least, since she is mostly harmless - and less annoying when you aren't forced to interact with her, as I was with various hypocritical controlling and Fake Nice ladies as a kid. I did find the penultimate portion of the novel with its slight injection of romance a bit unnecessary, although I think I can see why it's there - the author needed a pretext for tying up loose ends; and there's the saving grace that it is fairly clear from earlier in the novel that the POV character (a rather fabulous and ridiculous little man who seems pretty much gay, tbh, but you know, 1920) is more narcissistically imagining himself in love than truly impassioned.</li><br /></ol><br /><br />Did not finish Arnold Bennet's The Grand Babylon Hotel, which I mentioned last week. The beginning was fun, mainly in the portrayal of the operation and surprising purchase of the hotel; but about 40% of the way through I noticed that it was written pretty transparently to have a contrived cliffhanger at the end of each chapter, and one of the main characters was being so stupid that there was no possible rationale except 'wanted her to do it because it was dramatic'. <br /><br />In progress:<br /><br /><ol><li>Chrétien de Troyes's 12th century Arthurian romances in Kibler and Carroll's prose translation. I'm about 37% finished with the whole collection, which is to say, most of the way through the second story, Cligés, which is not nearly as enjoyable as Erec and Enide, and it has involved a bit of skimming. The funny thing is that apparently this story is generally thought to have been composed as a counterargument (?) to Tristan and Isolde, and indeed, the characters talk about not wanting to be like Tristan and Isolde repeatedly. The level of sophistication in the arrangement of circumstances to be uh, an obvious counterpoint to them and also interesting is... low? It's pretty silly. <br /><br />Medieval romances typically feature heroes and heroines who are paragons of virtue and what with the hyperbolic exaggerations typical of oral folklore which they tend to feature as well, it's not uncommon to hear that they're the most beautiful person in the world, that every single part of them is perfect, that a gift they're given is the most expensive and best-made whatever-it-is in the world and completely encrusted with gems, that all the people in the town are eager to declare how much they adore them and it's definitely the first time that many people have ever loved anybody that much... etc. etc. In other words, they frequently get a bit My Immortal. But this one does it even more than the last one. It has a tournament where the hero specifically goes and orders four entire sets of color-coded arms and armor and then he brings four different horses, and he appears on four consecutive days in the different outfits and separately defeats King Arthur's four best knights (according to the story) but ALSO hordes of other random knights in the melee, more than anybody has ever defeated at one time before, and in spite of being the most modest guy who ever jousted, he is detected on the last day and followed around by hundreds of knights insisting they want to pledge fealty to him and they are not worthy. Also there are two DIFFERENT women in this story who are the most incredibly beautiful woman to ever exist, which makes one wonder if they were identical. As a counterpoint to the increased silliness, though, this one includes an absolutely insane magical plot where the heroine marries a villain (sort of) but gives him a magic potion that causes him to fall asleep as soon as he goes to bed for the rest of his life, believing that he's awake and having sex, but actually not, so that she remains SECRETLY chaste, and then later she fakes her death with a different potion.</li><br /><li>EF Benson - Miss Mapp. 1922. Sequel to Queen Lucia, with a different type of controlling upper middle class lady. I'm only at 11% of this one, and so far she has mostly watched people from behind the curtains and judged everybody. She seems like an annoying person but so far less annoying than Lucia (she doesn't babytalk, for one), although the beginning of the book is not quite as funny yet. </li><br /><li>Martha Wells - Artificial Condition. The second Murderbot book. This is the one with ART, and that's my favorite side character, so I'm having a good time. It's a really interesting and exciting part of the mystery, and the new clients are extremely foolish but it's mostly hilarious to me instead of alarming and frustrating, which is how that type of character often strikes me. Maybe because the Murderbot's narration filters it all with dry, doleful pessimism?</li></ol><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3662725" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3662473Lines from Erec and Enide by Chrétien de Troyes that gave me unexpected insight into the 12th c.2024-03-18T17:49:39Z2024-03-20T15:53:44Zpublic6<ol><li>"If anyone wishes to oppose this, let him now say what he thinks. I am the king, and I must not he nor consent to any villainy or falsity or excess; I must preserve reason and rightness, for a loyal king ought to maintain law, truth, faith, and justice. I would not wish in any way to commit disloyalty or wrong, no more to the weak than to the strong; it is not right that any should complain of me, and I do not want the tradition or the custom, which my line is bound to uphold, to fall into disuse." (This speech was King Arthur's, but it's interesting more for the ideal of kingship presented, which seems comically at odds with the history of the period - to wit, the reign of Henry II!)</li><br /><li>Erec had very rich lodgings, for that was what he was accustomed to: there was a profusion of lighted candles, both wax and tallow. </li><br /><li>King Evrain was faultlessly courteous when he saw Enide coming: he immediately greeted her and hastened to help her dismount. He led her by her beautiful and delicate hand up into his palace, just as courtesy required, and he honoured her in every way he could – for he knew full well how to do it – without any base or foolish thought. He had perfumed a chamber with incense, myrrh, and aloe; upon entering it everyone praised King Evrain’s fine welcome. Hand in hand they entered the chamber with the king, who had escorted them there, rejoicing greatly over them.</li><br /><li>Before the hour of tierce had sounded, King Arthur had dubbed four hundred knights and more, all sons of counts and kings; he gave each of them three horses and three pairs of mantles, to improve the appearance of his court. The king was very powerful and generous: he did not give mantles made of serge, nor of rabbit or dark-brown wool, but of samite and ermine, of whole miniver and mottled silk, bordered with orphrey, stiff and rough.</li><br /><li>Guivret led Erec to a delightful room, far from noise and well aired; his sisters laboured to heal him, at Guivret’s urging. Erec put his trust in them, for they inspired great confidence in him. First they removed the dead flesh, then applied ointment and dressing; they showed great diligence in caring for him and, being very skilled, they repeatedly washed his wounds and reapplied the ointment. Each day they made him eat and drink four times or more, and they kept him away from garlic and pepper.</li><br /></ol><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3662473" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3662298The car is snowed in; the sweater is in a vicious cycle of repeated gentle (handwash) cycle2024-03-17T13:22:16Z2024-03-17T13:30:49Zpublic13Winter's second-to-last gasp! It snowed a bunch yesterday and now we're gonna have some cold days before it melts again. (But that probably won't be the last cold snap - the last is usually later in April.) <br /><br />The car is hence snowed in under a pile of snow, and Wax worked yesterday and today, so we're going to have to walk to the grocery store this evening to get more yogurt for breakfast, fresh greens and hay for the bunnies, and catfood. And the groceries I have to get for work. (I am allowed to get the groceries for work in working hours, but when I need them first thing Monday morning I would rather get a ride on Sunday and keep them in the fridge than start my morning getting all sweaty hiking back and forth carrying bags of groceries.)<br /><br />Wax had last Friday and Thursday off of work and she made a lemon pound cake, which came out really REALLY well, and did some extra laundry, but it's still a downer having her work both days of my weekend. At least the snow is pretty. It's been miserably ugly outside with the gravel and dirty ice and mud, and the first spring shoots haven't come up yet... although some of the trees and bushes did start trying to make leaves, to their chagrin, no doubt, now that they're cold and covered in snow again.<br /><br />And speaking of laundry, I think I mentioned that a cat had peed in the basket with my sweaters - though I didn't blame them because I thought this was probably due to not wanting to get their feet dirty in the box. <br /><br />Cat Divorce has the cats segregated and I have been in just the kitchen and diningroom with Snookums and Tristana for the colder months, because she's so tiny and naked and cold all the time, and he's old and arthritic, and these rooms are the warmest in the house by a good bit. But they now have just two rooms, and there's only one litterbox in them because there's just not room. The litterbox being in the kitchen is extremely undesirable anyway, but the dining room is where I sleep, and you need a bit of distance from the litterbox to sleep. But diabetes comes with lots of upset stomach and also with peeing a lot more. So the box fills up REALLY quickly. There really should be more than one litterbox in their range for that reason. I removed the laundry baskets and put a cover over the basket with my wool sweaters in it, only then the last time I changed the sheets, Wax discovered that one of them peed on the sheet where it was lying on the floor before she came and got it to wash. So apparently whoever it is has got in the habit now and we can't have any fabric on the floor in here. <br /><br />Wax and I can probably switch bedrooms again soon, once it becomes warm enough in the house that the cats aren't trying to hide in the blanket against the radiator 90% of the time. That will provide more boxes and more chance for Tristana to run up and down the stairs and get her steps in.<br /><br />I had to wash the sweater with wool wash, not just water, because, you know, cat pee, but unfortunately the only wool wash I was able to find locally contains a perfume that irritates my nose. So I'm hoping putting it through the hand wash cycle an additional three times after that with just water will remove the perfume enough that wearing it won't make me sneeze. The other option is putting it through with white vinegar, which is actually meant to be good for wool, but that leaves a vinegary scent as well so it would probably have to be soaked with like... some conditioner in water to try to get rid of that? As you can see, it's a complicated vicious cycle and what I really need is to find another wool wash, preferably unscented. I don't use it often though. Knitted woolens don't want a lot of washing, and water is usually enough. (This particular issue has never happened before!)<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3662298" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3661934The seagreen cardigan post surgery2024-03-16T16:30:48Z2024-03-16T16:30:48Zpublic6My surgery on this cardigan was pretty successful, as you can see in these interim photos. The bottom band fits now; the corners of it don't really lie down though. I am thinking about maybe sewing a snap there to hold it in place, but it's not hugely important.<br /><br />Also cats. <br /><br /><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/781435.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/320x320/781435.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a> <a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/780734.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/320x320/780734.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a> <a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/780329.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/320x320/780329.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3661934" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3661667Currently reading:2024-03-14T18:44:26Z2024-03-14T18:45:42Zpublic2<ol><li>Bennet, Arnold. <em>The Grand Babylon Hotel</em>. 1902. 19%. This is a thriller that was made into two different silent films, neither of which I have seen. The titular hotel was apparently based on the Savoy, and the action is about a mysterious disappearance (kidnapping?) which hasn't happened yet. It was very popular in its day, when originally published as a serial. </li><br /><br /><li>Chrétien de Troyes. <em>Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes.</em> 2004. (Kibler and Carroll, trans.) (Original date of publication... lol... 1181.) 16%. The poems of Chrétien de Troyes are the first real fictional incarnation of Arthurian romance. I am a big fan of the prose style of William Morris's "Medieval romances", proto-fantasy novels which I am given to understand get their style largely from medieval romances. Having run out of them and failed to really find anything similar among his contemporaries in early fantasy writers, I decided to check out the medieval romances themselves. I intend to read Robert de Boron's Merlin, some of the Lais of Marie de France and perhaps some of the widely available excerpts of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, also known as the prose Vulgate (though my most recent research indicates that people are recommended not to read it because it's boring, and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur is generally regarded as a good and much more exciting summary of it. I DNFed Malory as a teenager, but I suppose I might give it another try instead.) Also Perzival, if I can find a translation - I haven't yet.</li><br /><br /><li>Benson, E.F. <em>Queen Lucia.</em> 1920. 44%. The first of the Mapp and Lucia novels, about middle class social climbing ladies and their desire to rule over the society of their little coastal towns in 1920s England. This one is all about Lucia, and Mapp is introduced in a different novel and in a different town, before they are brought together in another book. So far, this is pretty entertaining comedy of manners, and the setting seems familiar from all the mysteries I've read over the years.</li><br /><br /><li>Wells, Martha. <em>All Systems Red</em>. 2017. 23%. Rereading the first Murderbot book. I haven't got that far yet. It's lovely to read.</li></ol><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3661667" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3661389Can't believe I spent hours mopping the floor yesterday though...2024-03-14T15:38:55Z2024-03-14T15:38:55Zpublic0My charity is part of a cooperative group of organizations incorporated as a volunteer search and rescue organ that responds to calls for help from the police and government. The organizations include all kinds of different specialties like hunters, competitive orienteering teams, rescue dog trainers, the volunteer fire department, and a bunch of boating and sea-related organisations because we're in the islands of the archipelago. This morning there was a missing person alarm at six... or something? And the volunteer searchers were coordinated out of my office, so I got to work at eleven to find the floor covered in gravel, the big marker flip pad on the stand in the middle of the room, and two trash cans full of crumbs and paper cups and napkins and coffee grounds. (I heard this afternoon that the police found the missing person after a couple hours.)<br /><br />I spent quite a while tidying up and doing dishes and taking out trash, and I didn't manage to find the time to go talk to my next-door neighbor in the strip mall until after lunch. I had built up quite a head of social anxiety by that time and had to take half a benzo first, even though I didn't realistically expect her to be anything other than friendly and accepting. We nod and wave at each other regularly, since we finish work and lock up at the same time usually, but I didn't know her name before. She has been in that shop longer than I've been working here, and she said she's never heard of a drunk person coming into a shop in Pargas before, which is reassuring! (Although I do think my office is in more danger than the shops are, simply because of all the people who for some reason think it's a representative of the local government and therefore the proper place to direct complaints about the government. That seems to be what was behind my visitor yesterday.) But anyway, at my boss's recommendation, we have agreed we can each call the other if something like that happens, and I've saved her phone number with my bosses' numbers to the work phone's home screen. <br /><br />I only managed to dedicate about an hour and a half to my current project, which is trying to make a brief introduction to all our volunteer groups that will fit on both sides of an A4 paper, folded into a little A5 booklet. And now I have a headache. It's raining today, which is a bit sad because it's gray and damp instead of sunny, but I do hope this will help melt more of the snow and ice away. And Wax has today and tomorrow off, and works the weekend instead. I hate when that happens, because we already get so little time together; she's off at the movies now (I didn't want to go).<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3661389" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3661129Ranting guy [at busstop]2024-03-13T14:56:23Z2024-03-13T14:56:23Zpublic8Ranting guy at busstop in Finland is usually a drunk. <br /><br />Today's guy was not at the busstop, although definitely was that type of guy. <br /><br />He came into my office at work, where I was alone, and started off incoherently rambling (seemed drunk but not 100% sure if he was), in a mumbly and difficult folksy accent but also missing a bunch of teeth, about a recent unemployment freeze that the asshole government is doing (along with cutting funding to education and all kinds of social services obviously). He did say several times that this government is shit, which is definitely true. But he also imparted all kinds of conspiracy theories, such as:<br /><br /><ul><li>The Finnish government is never going to pay any social welfare or support of any kind again to any Finnish person</li><br /><li>But they are going to continue paying large payments to all the Ukrainian refugees specifically, once per year according to him, which is funny because I don't even know where the conspiracy theorists got that; that isn't how the support for them or any other asylum-seekers works</li><br /><li>The reason Finland isn't paying Finns any support anymore is because the EU said they can't</li><br /><li>The EU also said that they have to pay like... a hundred something million euros to the Ukrainian war (how do you pay a war? Who knows?) and uh, sixty million euros per day to Ukraine</li><br /><li>The EU is making Finland join Nato and the US is going to make Finland give all their money to Nato too</li><br /><li>He also led off by asking if I was Ukrainian, so I guess it was good for me that I am not</li><br /><li>Russia is going to conquer Finland apparently???</li><br /><li>Finland is definitely going to suffer because of this and... that's going to take the form of... no more... streets? No more cars on the streets? Not sure, something about the street no more</li><br /><li>Speaking of Russia, Hitler helped Finland because Finland was neutral. (Finland was allied with Hitler in WW2 - uh, definitely NOT neutral, which I actually said at the time, even though by then it was clear that this guy was in aliens territory - because the USSR was engaged in trying to conquer Finland, and Hitler was who was fighting the USSR. But they were both helping each other with that shared goal; there wasn't any altruism involved! This is not an unproblematic issue in Finnish culture and history and I've talked about it before.)</li></ul><br /><br />This guy also was under the impression, like so many other people seem to be for some reason, that our office is part of the government. I explained that it isn't several times and I don't think it really got through. "Who pays your salaries then?" "The charity does. This is a charity. It's a volunteer organization." "But who pays your salaries? It's not the USA. It's not Nato." Correct, good sir! It's the charity, like I literally JUST said! And therefore it's mostly donations!<br /><br />So, anyway, he was there for over an hour, and he was getting pretty worked up and angry by the end, apparently mostly motivated by the unemployment freeze but apparently directed more at ummmmm the EU and Ukrainians??? but he also didn't have a single actual question or request to make, as far as I was able to tell. I couldn't eat my lunch while he was there so I eventually edged out into the main room and said I needed to get on with cleaning, but even THAT did not work until I finally lost my patience and said like five times in a row that I couldn't answer questions about, or talk about, issues of EU or government spending and money, that I don't know anything about it (this part about five times), and that my job is just to sit here and sell cards and answer questions about our volunteer groups, so like, SORRY, but... eventually he left. <br /><br />After that I was kinda shaky.<br /><br />My boss has suggested that I go to the little shop next door (we're in a strip mall) and ask if we can exchange emergency phone numbers in case this happens again, so either of us could run next door to help. Not that either of us would be able to eject a weird customer, but I definitely would've felt better. So I'll probably do that tomorrow.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3661129" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3660852Karaoke Mondays: Raphael's Angel2024-03-12T16:00:22Z2024-03-13T09:47:05Zpublic2This song, released in 1990 by Finnish singer-songwriter Pekka Ruuska, was a mega hit. And that's because it's totally a bop.<br /><br />It reminds me of the "alternative" bands I was familiar with from my teenage years in the late 1990s (sound wise), like Cake and They Might Be Giants and that song called "If I Had A Million Dollars", which I've always hated, but it's undeniably catchy. I don't hate this song, which is also catchy.<br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I-TB4Ma8ihg?si=djjQ4VUGl8B79BZ4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />There isn't a music video, apparently. I tried to find a lyric video, but the only one I found had some arguably NSFW and kind of fucked-up art of naked ladies with wings who definitely do NOT resemble <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baronci_Altarpiece#/media/File:Raffaello_Angelo_1_(frammento_pala_Baronci).jpg">the angels</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael#/media/File:Raphael_-_Deliverance_of_Saint_Peter.jpg">of</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael#/media/File:CrocefissioneRaffaello.jpg">Raphael</a> (who, according to Wikipedia, "according to Michael Levey, 'gives his [figures] a superhuman clarity and grace in a universe of Euclidian certainties'"). <br /><br />The song is basically like, "The world is overwhelming, there's all this stuff, sometimes it sucks, sometimes it's confusing, so have mercy on me, be Raphael's angel to me". One of the repeated bits is about children, so I assume it's about his wife and all the emotional labor and/or comforting she does. Maybe not emotional labor though, since I, at least, get a lot of solace from my own wife just by complaining about my day to her without requiring much more than the naturally elicited reactions like "Huh" and "Lol". <br /><br />But really, this song is catchy enough that it doesn't matter and most people probably don't notice.<br /><br />***My pitch to <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://waxjism.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://waxjism.dreamwidth.org/'><b>waxjism</b></a></span>: "Wax, do you know a Finnish song that goes dun, da-da-da, dun, da-da-da, ... something dum-dum dun dun dun dun dun, ole minulle something-something enkeli?" <br /><br />"Yes, Rafaelin enkeli," she said immediately.<br /><br />ETA: Wax has informed me that the song refers to Raphael's famous cherubs from the Sistine Madonna. That didn't occur to me because anybody old enough to understand the plea "Have mercy on me" is too old to be one of these cherubs. She says the songwriter doesn't know what it means either, he was just inspired, or something. Ohhhhkay. Well. Doesn't matter! Still catchy.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3660852" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3660795Starting the day with a bang2024-03-12T08:18:18Z2024-03-12T08:18:18Zpublic6I started Tuesday off with a bang by bumping into the corner of one of the shelves in the fridge door, upon which it fell off and a bottle of herb vinegar, a bottle of flax seed oil, a jar of coconut oil, and a jar of baking soda all broke and spilled their contents on the kitchen floor.<br /><br />I used half a roll of paper towels picking up the chunks of glass and herbs and just reaching the center of the oil puddle, although my sheepskin slippers are also liberally doused, on the wool side as well as the leather side. They were getting pretty worn down and Snookums barfed on them two weeks ago, which is pretty good, because that would've been much more upsetting otherwise.<br /><br />So wiping up the oil, baking soda, and vinegar and then using a dish towel with hot water and dish soap to attempt degreasing also consumed a bunch of time, and my toast was ruined and my breakfast delayed by like fifteen minutes. Luckily my morning routine has minimum half an hour of extra time in it.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3660795" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3660372A few fun turns of phrase from William Morris's The Sundering Flood2024-03-11T21:28:52Z2024-03-12T08:22:33Zpublic2<ol><br /><li>went up to each one of the said men and made unked signs over him,</li><br /><li>After this they came into worser lands, rocky and barren, but made their way through somehow, whereas the Carline was deft at snaring small deer, as coneys and the like, and so they lived and got forward on their way.</li><br /><li>and all things flourished there: old foes became new friends, and all men were well content, save it were the King and his faitours, who rued it now that they had sold themselves so cheap.</li><br /><li>"And, sooth to say, now at once is the best time to do this, while the foe is all astonied at what befel last night." </li><br /><li>That great battle was fully foughten on the first of May,</li><br /></ol><br /><br /><br />Middle English unked, past participle of unkythen, equivalent to un- + ked (an old past participle form of <a href="https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/kithe#English">kithe</a>). 1 (UK, dialect, archaic) odd; strange 2 (UK, dialect, archaic) ugly 3 (UK, dialect, archaic) uncouth 4 (UK, dialect, archaic) lonely; dreary<br /><br />Middle English faitour, from Anglo-Norman faitour, cognate with Old French faitor (“doer, maker”), from Latin factor, factōrem, from facere (“do, make”). (archaic) charlatan or imposter.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3660372" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3660162Five OTHER things I've thought about this week...2024-03-09T12:05:40Z2024-03-09T12:10:06Zpublic7It's not fun to see three posts that are mostly about work in a week when I look back on my blog. For one thing, it's an unpleasant sign of how overwhelming it's become and how exhausting. For another, any week where I write about work three days is bound to be bad for my peace and equilibrium.<br /><br />But also, I didn't really do nothing but resent work that week (or any week). It's just easier to post about my grievances and the bizarre things that happen, since they come together naturally in anecdote form. <br /><br />I have lots of shorter anecdotes throughout the week about things like by-play observed among passers-by on the street, and things I humorously forgot due to ADHD, and hundreds of things the cats do that I just tell Wax. At the time of wanting to tell someone about these little tidbits, though, I don't think about blog posts. I'll just include five other things from this week to make myself feel better. <br /><br />§ The local business owners had one of their little events, in this case an event called "Kärringkväll" (Swedish) or "Akkainilta" (Finnish), in which all the small businesses in the town stay open late (usually they close at five or six because they're so small) and offer deals aimed specifically at women. As a result, somebody actually came and swept all the gravel off the sidewalks in the center part of downtown! It collects there all winter, with more being added every time there's fresh ice on the sidewalks, so when it finally melts (it isn't all melted from the streets and driveways and lawns yet, but most of it is worn off the sidewalks, where it melts faster) there are piles and piles of it. Regular nasty road dust of gasoline, microplastic, and carcinogens settles along the roads and gets stuck to the snow all winter, trapped with the gravel, which gets ground into dust and sand from being walked and driven on, and they have accumulated a truly incredible amount of airborne black nastiness by the time of the spring thaw. So we're about two weeks now into this period of extreme airway irritation, which continues usually until well after Easter. <br /><br />§ Met a beagle outside when I was walking, and got to pet it! It jumped up at me with that flattering and so relatable doggy excitement (I was excited too obvs), and the owner gave me permission to pet it. It left a cute little paw print on the knee of my jeans. <br /><br />§ My sister recently had bunion surgery on one foot and has started working from home again. In celebration (she felt too anxious to ask for time off when she wasn't working lol) she bought plane tickets for her and my BIL to visit us for two weeks at the end of August! <br /><br />§ There's definitely a leak in the roof. The melt made this clear. It's not a huge emergency one, but it's made a stain. We were planning to have it fixed soon, anyway. We don't really know who to hire, though. However, a couple weeks ago we were out walking and met an old schoolmate of Wax's, and exchanged greetings, and as we were leaving, we noticed that his house was pretty recently remodeled, including the roof, and it looked good. So our current hope is to see him outside again so that we can ask if they can recommend whoever did theirs. This means walking more, and specifically down the part of our street a few blocks away near the top of the hill. <br /><br />§ I have been thinking some more about how incredibly wrong the voices sound in historical fiction a lot of the time, and it's always because it's a period where I'm familiar with the literature written in that era and the characters sound wrong. (Why I love Catriona Macpherson's Dandy Gilver and haven't liked any other recent mysteries set in that era that I've looked at.) It's an easy fix, albeit clearly not one everyone is interested in - you just have to read a lot of stuff written in the period. When you're talking about the 19th century onward in the anglophone countries and reading in English, this task is trivially easy; as you go further back, or try to cross language barriers, it gets harder of course, but there's not much excuse for failing at Victorian England, IMO, and far less for failing at the period between WW1 and 2. <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/3660162.html#cutid1">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div> Anyway, all of these thought processes have been bubbling for years, and I recently decided to look for some more novels from between the two wars from different genres, to get a wider sample of the sound. So far I've been a bit frustrated by my attempts to narrow by publication date (you can't filter by it at Project Gutenberg, for instance, but their transcriptions are much more easy to read than the scans at archive.org), but I've also had a bunch of fun and bemusing encounters with books that I haven't finished. Edwardian romances, for example. Yikes, and yet, haha. And now I've started the first of EM Benson's Mapp and Lucia books, which I had heard of because of the tv series without quite knowing what they were about, and the beginning has a whole section that's like a client I would make fun of on This Old House, remodeling a historical house pretentiously and removing original features that didn't look olde timey enough, then building a new wing with a fake Tudor fireplace and refusing to put electricity in it and covering the floor with rushes. I can practically see Kevin O'Connor politely asking if she's sure and explaining why electric lighting is so popular and convenient in living areas, and then saying "Well, if you're sure! You like it, and we like decisions!" with his eyebrows in his hairline.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3660162" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3659472REALLY???2024-03-06T08:35:47Z2024-03-06T09:57:12ZDo not wantNoooooooooooooooooooooooooopublic7Sooooo I'm supposed to go to Turku for a meeting once a month, and yesterday was the day. They've forgotten to tell me the meeting was canceled several times so I intended to call first, but I forgot Monday, and then at the end of the day I thought, Oh well, they've been good about remembering me lately.<br /><br />So I got up an hour+ early yesterday and rode a bus a total of nearly an hour and a half, with another 40 minutes hiking there and back to the bus stop and then waiting for the next bus back to Pargas, because there was a sign on the door that they were closed yesterday. I didn't have lunch with me, either, because in Turku there's a lunch restaurant in the building. So after all that, I arrived at work fifteen minutes earlier than normal with no lunch and not having taken my ADHD medicine, and exhausted, and with my period suddenly starting, so with cramps. (I bought an okay sandwich and an inferior yogurt at the nearby kiosk for lunch.)<br /><br />I got home yesterday and changed the sheets because Snookums had vomited in my bed, and then napped for an hour and a half, but unfortunately I then got distracted knitting and didn't go to bed early... and then Snookums had a horrible night and woke me up a lot. I got up in the morning to find an awful stink, the litterbox in the next room completely full so I had to change it, poop on his feet that I had to wash in the sink, and one of the cats had peed in my basket of sweaters with the cardigan I was going to wear today on top (probably because there was nowhere to step in the box without getting their feet dirty 😭, so I can't hold it against them).<br /><br />And then just now I got a text that I have an appointment with a psychiatric nurse tomorrow, even earlier. I want to cry. These meetings usually feel like a big waste of time to me, but I'm still adapting to a new medication that can have side effects, and we might switch it out or increase the dose, so it's best practice for them to keep checking on me. But. I just want to sleep!<br /><br />And then I need about four days off in order to have enough time to clean the house, which is distressingly in need of spring cleaning, but there's not enough time on a regular weekend to do it and still catch up on rest.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3659472" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3659046Bandwidth2024-03-03T21:40:31Z2024-03-03T21:40:31Zpublic0Oops, I spent so long comparing patterns for my next knitting project (a 2-color brioche crescent shawl took precedence over the planned fair isle sweater because my brioche cowl disintegrated enough to be unwearable, and so urgently needs replaced) that I didn't actually order the yarn (and also the buttons I need which are the whole reason I need to make this order). I've known I needed the extra buttons for seven days now! Lol.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3659046" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3658777The new cardigan recently named as a candidate for surgery...2024-03-02T15:48:47Z2024-03-02T15:49:16Zpublic4As mentioned last week, I bought too few buttons (Drops mother-of-pearl buttons, 2 cm, in color Moonbeam), so you see the cardigan held together at the collar with a shawl pin. And you can also see the bottom band and hence the bottom button being too small. Other than that, I love this sweater.<br /><br /><center><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/778304.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/200x200/778304.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a> <a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/779977.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/200x200/779977.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a><br /><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/778647.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/200x200/778647.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a> <a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/778824.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/200x200/778824.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a></center><br /><br />This pattern is "Guernsey Girl" by Anne B. Hansen and it's made in Drops Alpaca in the color sea green. It's blocking now (I wore it twice last week before blocking), in hopes that the band will stretch enough to make the surgery unnecessary. But if not I'll snip the seams holding the button bands to the bottom ribbing apart and then cut the ribbing band off going through the top row of ribbing, then pick up the bottom row of the body and knit a new ribbing going down with some increases first. I can calculate the necessary number of stitches by measuring the actual finished stitches of ribbing per cm. <br /><br />I have been meaning to start learning Fair Isle colorwork for years. I want to make proper Fair Isle designs and I bought a book on the subject a year ago, but I kept making just one more single-colored sweater that I urgently needed, you know how it is. Anyway, I think I will start with just two colors - I've knitted two-color stranded colorwork before several times of course - and I'm leaning towards buying the yarn for <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/windermere-4">Windermere by Marie Wallin</a> to fill out my order of the buttons. After that I'll see if I have enough scraps of different fingering-weight yarn colors to do a vest.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3658777" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3658668the outlook is gray2024-03-01T14:54:51Z2024-03-01T14:54:51Zpublic1We've definitely slipped a bit on our walking-every-day-schedule-and-no-precipitation-permitting recently. <br /><br />I'm going to chalk that up to February being the worst month of the year in terms of weather. We actually did go for a few walks with ice cleats on, but it's just very unpleasant to go for a walk over sheets of ice. Everywhere in town is also quite ugly and gray with melting ice covered in road dirt and gravel, although the slipperiness is decreasing just now. Apparently the weather people have said it's not going to get very cold again this year (I assume they mean staying significantly below the freezing point; it will almost certainly snow again, but the snow at the end of the season doesn't stick). So maybe that means the dirty ice and the gravel is truly on its way out and it will only get better from here. Although the lack of sun is about 50% of the problem, for me at least. I think the last time I saw a sunbeam was two weeks ago... maybe three weeks ago. <br /><br />The lack of sun<em>beams</em>, or sun visible behind the clouds, is true in spite of increasing daylight hours, which is definitely better than nothing. It's just that the daylight hours in question are sort of dim pearl gray, which isn't as energizing. I presume there's still some increase in vitamin D though. <br /><br />According to the goals we set ourselves at the beginning of the year I think we are supposed to go today - it depends if the sun has set or not in the next half hour. And it is now above freezing, and has been all week, so one doesn't need ice cleats to walk MOST places. But I don't have a good feeling about it. Maybe the problem is that we live too centrally in town. If we walked in the forest that wouldn't be ugly (though it would be EXTREMELY muddy...), but it takes a good ten or fifteen minutes of walking to get to the nearest patch of forest. <br /><br />In other news I still haven't ordered the buttons to replace on my new sweater, because I still haven't picked my next project. I haven't had enough time in the evenings this week to make the decision. And I also still haven't ordered the sewing machine oil. I'm now considering doing an extremely laborious surgery on the sweater I just finished. I DID do a gauge swatch just as I was supposed to and picked a size that should've been safe and followed the directions, but the bottom ribbing of the sweater is knitted on a smaller needle size and it has a lot of contraction, which is great for a bomber jacket style like this, but means that it doesn't sit properly and the bottom button doesn't lie flat. Unfortunately it was knitted bottom up so the very bottom edge of the garment is the cast-on row, and it was cast on for those slimmer needles; it could stretch more if not for the cast-on being too tight! But ideally I think there should just be a lot more stitches. The bottom stitch count is just right to lie flat with no stretching at the larger needle size of the body; it SHOULD lie flat with no stretching at the smaller needle size for the ribbing. Ribbing is supposed to stretch, but when you have a cardigan with buttons and not a zipper, if the tendency to contract in the ribbing is trying to create negative ease, the result is just that it pulls on the button. It's a huge hassle, nearly impossible with fragile or hairy yarn, to unravel knitting from the cast-on edge. Because this is a bottom-up sweater, I would be pretty much guaranteed to lose a fair bit of yarn if I tried to unravel the bottom ribbing and reknit it. I have several extra balls of wool, though, so I could increase those needed stitches and then also bind off the bottom hem more loosely.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3658668" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3658290Karaoke Mondays: The Case of the Phantom Spanish Folk Song2024-02-29T15:28:56Z2024-02-29T15:35:52Zpublic5Last week after overhearing bits of karaoke from the next room at work, at one point I asked Wax if she knew a song that went "Da-da-da-DUM, kitara soi... dum dum dum DUM... da-da-DAAAA, da-da-DAAA". <br /><br />Wax laughed and asked if I knew anything else about it, so I said that it sounded vintage, sort of chanteuse-era, with a guitar and some other folk music type instruments and sounded vaguely like the ensembles used for Finnish tangos.<br /><br />If you didn't know, <a hre="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_tango"">Finnish Tango</a> is a big thing. Finland has been crazy for tango, both the dance and the music, since it took Finland by storm in the 1930s. There are tango clubs and tango competitions and there's a whole genre of tango bands and Finnish tango artists who compose and sing Finnish tangos. (According to Wikipedia, the dance is an Argentine tango but the rhythm follows ballroom tango, whatever that means.) Aside from the lyrics being in Finnish, while Finnish tangos are clearly tangos, they also have a slightly different flavor which seems a bit more slow and a bit more relaxed or staid: perhaps that's what the Argentine/ballroom distinction is getting at, but I don't care enough to research it right now. <br /><br />Wax's suggestion was that if it sounded Spanish or Italian to me it might be a Finnish translation of an Argentine tango or Italian dance - there are oodles of these, even more as you go back in time, because of the tango's popularity. <br /><br />She named a song which is apparently basically known to everyone in Finland, "Hopeinen Kuu" (lit. "silver moon"). <br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/WE5SrkzxYdY?si=pb4n1XdyKrPsdMVM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />This is Olavi Virta's 1960 translation of the Italian Guarda che luna:<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lqzRNvx4tjQ?si=AfHkG_bQzNFlA5Gy" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />She hummed a bit of it to me and I said, "You know, actually, I think that's probably it!"<br /><br />But then this week at karaoke somebody sang it, so I came over to get a look at the lyrics as they went by, and later I googled them, and it totally is not.<br /><br />It IS a big song in Finland, though. It's called "Surujen kitara" (lit. guitar of the sorrows), and the first result you get for it is a hilarious-looking band of guys called "Topi Sorsakoski and AGENTS", who released it on a hit album in 1986, but I found a 1963 recording that sounds very much like Mexican folk music:<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aK-a0YLK2O8?si=1tnmgbLQp93oZcoW" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />So I looked a bit further, thinking I'd find a Spanish-language original... but what I found out instead... is that it's the translation of a theme song by PEGGY LEE for a 1953 JOAN CRAWFORD Western called "Johnny Guitar". The original! Is actually called Johnny Guitar! <br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/IeCWuN0dc5w?si=1To6UF3Lz1UoRmyn" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />Interestingly, I think it's quite understandable why Surujen kitara was a massive hit and Johnny Guitar (the song) apparently wasn't: I think it's a much better song, even though musically they are the same! The lyrics are a lot stronger without the character's name, which, you gotta admit, is pretty goofy; they thus manage to sound more poetic and have a more universal appeal. The summary of "Johnny Guitar", song, is kind of... "My man, Johnny Guitar, is absolutely the best for various reasons and someone just killed him". In contrast, you could summarize "Surujen kitara" as "This mournful guitar used to sound beautiful and joyful, but you (vague, mysterious) left and now it sounds sad and dark and cold instead."<br /><br />I don't think I've ever actually seen a Joan Crawford movie, but the cover image from Wikipedia has a fabulous, albeit ahistorical, outfit on her:<br /><a href="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/777559.jpg"><img src="https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/file/480x480/777559.jpg" alt="" title="" /></a><br /><br />She also wears, apparently, a black blouse and jeans and a little gray or green ribbon bow necktie with a big thigh holster to hold people at gunpoint, and a strangely 1950s gown with a gauze bodice and kind of cottage core collar for playing the piano in her saloon that she owns, and also a denim button shirt with a floor-length skirt and a red bandana around her neck. And at some point, a maroon housecoat with a... hot pink lace-edged camisole...? And in this cover image she also seems to wear slim high-waisted jeans which is hilarious for an apparently 19th century western. <br /><br />Also, according to Wikipedia, Johnny Guitar (the character) doesn't actually die AND isn't the main character, rendering the title of the movie weird and the content of the Peggy Lee theme song even weirder. Maybe there's a minute in there where she thinks he's dead before being reassured, idk.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3658290" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3658222It's fun to see Athena and Hera working together, even if it's, y'know, for evil2024-02-28T18:43:55Z2024-02-28T18:43:55Zpublic5I finished the Iliad yesterday and I'm a bit sad about that, but I'm not going to buy the Odyssey until the weekend. <br /><br />I'm still working on the Silmarillion (in the last segment though, finally!) and a sociological theory book, Institutional Theory (Meyer and Jepperson, 2021).<br /><br />I saved quotes demonstrative of the extraordinary qualities of the Iliad while reading, but I saved too many. Some winnowing is needed to produce any readable post.<br /><br />Also I have rereading Murderbot on my list.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3658222" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3657926"The internet has become practically unusable," was Wax's comment.2024-02-27T18:49:35Z2024-02-27T18:50:45Zpublic2I haven't given up on oiling the sewing machine myself, I just haven't got around to buying new oil yet. But in the meantime, at work yesterday I decided to search and see if there are any local small appliance repair shops. I know there isn't a SEWING MACHINE shop, which isn't surprising for a town with one main street, but I thought there might be just an assorted Thing repair spot.<br /><br />One of the top results I got was actually about a little part-time bicycle repair shop that's attached to the local plant nursery, but I didn't realize that's what it was talking about because the full address wasn't readable in the search result, so I clicked...<br /><br />...and landed on a page of "customer reviews" completely in Finnish that was headed with a photo of <strong>my work office</strong> <em>that I took</em> last year, complete with the photo enhancement done by me. <br /><br />So this is definitely scraped from one of the charity's official websites (there are two possibilities, frtdneatj), and like... not for any good reason, because the nursery and repair shop is not anywhere near here and the street names and addresses are not even similar. Not to mention that if any human being had been involved in the process at any point they would have realized that it's definitely not a repair shop, because if there's one thing my charity is unimpeachably flawless at, it's [sparkles]branding[sparkles]!: the photo features a huge internationally recognizable logo as well as the name prominently blazoned across the windows and doors.<br /><br />If you scroll down the page, after the reviews there's some blather in Finnish about how dedicated they are to making Finland's best business reviews site blah blah blah (it's just a bad Yelp knockoff and there are like three better-known and better-designed sites in this market segment, so that's a fail too) and how extremely Finnish they all are, but the company address at the bottom of the page is in Singapore, so there's that.<br /><br />Also they definitely aren't very invested in the site, because not only does their content scraper operate without supervision, nobody has bothered to create a layout or visual design for the site, so it looks like when all the images are turned off or a really heavy site loads the text first and it's just hanging there in black and white for a while before the style loads. <br /><br />There's a link to report a "problem" with an article, and since it was actually my photo I did use it to point that out to them, not that I expect much to come of that.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3657926" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-10:30624:3657618The amount of time spent on problems like this in the mail order world...2024-02-27T08:21:55Z2024-02-27T08:23:16Zpublic0I need to order two more buttons for my cardigan that's missing one (the other is a spare), but it's not practical to pay shipping costs for two buttons, so I also need to plan my next project for after the socks I am currently knitting.<br /><br />I had been planning to make thicker silky merino house socks, which feel nicer on the skin, but I spent way too long yesterday discovering that none of the Finnish yarn shops in my bookmarks (there are about twelve, I think) have both the exact Drops 2cm shell buttons and dk merino sock yarn. So now I guess I need a new plan. Great.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=cimorene&ditemid=3657618" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments