tylik | Reading

This large guy is, apparently, an Eastern dobsonfly:

Seems a bit random to encounter one just outside my building, but when I was leaving work yesterday, there he was.

This morning S and I went on a little jaunt to look at a small piece of land up for sale in Watervliet (verdict: meh.). Heading to campus after, we biked past a shop I've wanted to check out called the Tool Box. It's a tool thrift store.

I found a couple of useful items, and so did S, but any enthusiasm I might have felt about the shop was quickly obliterated by the tone and nature of the political conversation the people running the shop were having. Sigh. The Historic Architectural Parts Warehouse was far more fun.

rebeccmeister

Raspberry season has arrived!

Time to stockpile more raspberries so we can make more of that delicious raspberry sorbet.

This garden bed is known as the BBQ Garden, because it originally looked like it used to be the site of a barbecue grill. Our lease explicitly says we can't have a barbecue grill, so instead we've got the BBQ Garden. A good, full-sun location:

The tomato, basil, and pepper plants in the BBQ Garden have really taken off over the past month, to the point where S figured we could roll up the chicken wire fences for the year. These tomato plants and the ones in the half wine barrel seem to be doing better compared to the tomato plants in the main garden bed.

Oh, here's what's at the other end of that rope:

In the meantime, the Dark Dahlia is getting big, and the lavender makes me happy every time I look at it.

And the porch herbs and smaller fig are pretty satisfying, too.

Overall I think we've reached a pretty good state with the garden and house plants. S would really love to take out all of the burning bushes on this property, which is understandable. But it isn't my top priority, because this is a rental house, and I've got too many other projects to work on in the meantime.

01d55 posting in

girlgenius_lair

That is also repairable.

sistawendy

Good Sister is scrambling to find an electrician to get all the outlets working in Mom's house. One of the contractors ran into an issue, and GS tells me that niece E had found non-functional outlets months ago at least. Oh by the way, since those are (mostly?) the original outlets from 1974, they look unattractively old. GS already had GFIs installed, which weren't there originally: if memory serves, they weren't required until 1975.

My sister has already gone through the informal hiring route — a co-worker of E's, as I recall — and found it wanting. There may be an open house this weekend, so the pressure is on. However, our agent is sanguine, and Good Sister says that interest in the place is robust.

But y'know, it just sort of figures that there'd be one last damn thing having to do with Mom and her house. I'm honestly amazed that GS limited her venting to maybe a minute; she's certainly earned more.

She wanted to know what price ranges I was willing to accept. I'm deeply unwilling to be a hardass because a) I don't feel like gambling with stakes this high, and b) I don't want my poor middle sister to have an aneurysm because I dragged this out too long. I don't know what Evil Sister's feelings are on the subject, but I'm pretty sure there are limits to her evil.

Current Mood: SMDH
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: Nicola Conte, "Jazz Pour Dadine"

brithistorian

Yesterday I finished reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I enjoyed it, but was frustrated with the ending — it seemed like it didn't end so much as just stopped.[^1] Today, I learned from cmcmck's comment on my July book record that this is actually the first book of a trilogy. This makes me feel better about the ending — I'll give an author more leeway on an ending when I know that a book is part of a series. But even if Mantel does give us a satisfying ending at the end of volume 3, that's still not going change the fact that, as much as I enjoyed the book, it feels like slice-of-life Thomas Cromwell fanfiction. (Of course, because it was professionally published and won awards, the literary establishment would quarrel with that characterization.)

[^1] Well, it didn't just stop — it reached a stopping place where one of the subplots had just resolved — but it didn't reach an actual conclusion.

brithistorian

Yesterday when I was in the grocery store, the music system started playing Elton John and Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", and my mind started rewriting the lyrics, turning into part of a M/M mafia musical rom-com. Specifically, it's the song in Act 2 where the two main characters realize they have feelings for each other. Below are the new lyrics I wrote for the first verse, where person A is the small business owner (I'm thinking baker) who's in debt to the mafia[^1] boss and person B is the thug sent out by the mafia boss to collect on a loan.

A: Don't go breaking my arm. B: I'm s'posed to shatter your knee. A: Tell Vinny I'll get him his money. B: He's not so patient like me.

[^1] I just looked it up (because of course I did), when using mafia in a generic sense you don't capitalize it, and when referring to a specific organization (e.g. the Sicilian Mafia), you do.

rebeccmeister

Sometime soon I am hoping to start on the project of refinishing a lot of the rowing club's oars. On some of the blades, the surface has worn down to the point where we're starting to scrape through the fiberglass layers. Other blades have chips and cracks. Not good. Those things ain't cheap!

Certain things clicked into place during a conversation with teammates about how to honor one of our teammates who has just moved down to NYC for three years while his fiancee undertakes a pediatrics fellowship there. P mentioned the idea of giving J a map of our section of the Hudson River, with our usual landmarks illustrated, so J would remember his rowing roots. When searching online, he wasn't able to find anything of the sort, but that all gave me Ideas.

Here's the original dirty old blade I worked with, one of a bunch of blades I salvaged when teammates wanted to throw them all away as Useless Boatyard Junk:

After sanding the blade down and coating it with primer, I put the first layer of paint on with a bristle brush, and quickly concluded I didn't like that application method, for reasons such as what can be seen here:

I switched over to a foam brush for the subsequent layers, which worked well enough for this purpose. Oar blade painting is almost as stressful as putting on coats of varnish, except at least oar blades are much smaller and easier to reposition. When it comes to repainting the oars the club uses, I'll mix in a couple of paint additives that a teammate recommended based on her prior efforts to repaint oars about a decade ago.

I used SignPainter's One Shot for the major design elements:

Then some Sharpies and more One Shot for the finishing details. Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out! I don't know how durable the SignPainters One Shot is, but hopefully durable enough?

As I told J, I'm now hoping that he can convince his future father-in-law to come up with a good method for mounting the oar for display, since his future father-in-law is a really good woodworker. And if the FFiL does...maybe additional ones can be made for the other 5 blades in the pile? That has been one of the aspects of Art Oars that I just don't really want to deal with.

I should point out that I've been carting around one of the oar blades in the pile since the Texas days, so it might be another decade before I'm struck by inspiration again, heh. Still - these are nice materials to work with for the sake of making display/art items for rowers.

----

Project 2 came from thinking that my research students and I should make something to commemorate our summer of research work. Just based on our personalities, I came up with the idea of some sort of "Easily Distracted by Ants" concept. One of my research students is artistically inclined, and agreed to create a design based around that concept. After working on it, she got inspired to make a second design featuring the name of the ant species we're working with.

Once I showed the designs to S, he asked if we would like to do DIY screenprinting if supplied with a screen, ink, and squeegee. But of course!

On Sunday I picked up a stack of blank shirts at Goodwill, and yesterday I got additional shirts from 2 of 3 students, to print on.

The first design, which also went on the front of all the shirts:

Design on the back of all the shirts:

Shirts waiting while they dry:

I am SO PLEASED with these. There are definitely going to be more rounds of shirt-printing in the future.

So now you have some idea of some of the things that have been keeping me busy lately.

elainegrey

We did not wash away in the 10.35 inches of rain, but oh my was it wet yesterday. All the rivers of water up to my ankle in various places in the yard and drive -- and this morning it was all absorbed or run off.

https://vimeo.com/1099352304?share=copy#t=0

Today we went out for lunch, then into Raleigh to pick up an Edible Art fancy almond birthday cake for Christine's sister's birthday. It does not feel like it was 25 days ago that B-- died, but Christine's COVID then other infection and then my vacation certainly all created different time experiences. D--'s studio may have flooded three feet last night: hopefully a birthday party will ... be OK? Help with grief? Let her know she's loved?

Back to work and paying attention to time tomorrow. And trying to do the things that i am supposed to do instead of letting whim take the lead. Not sure i will be able to get in the yard all week except maybe sitting on the deck in the morning. Tomorrow's weather is a sauna, Wednesday is our grocery night ,and then the rest of the week is evening thunderstorms.

sistawendy

Good Sister texted me a few hours ago to tell me that the house I grew up in is back in the online listings. There are an even hundred photos of it, including several shots from a drone. It's a little the worse for wear since the five of us moved in in 1974, but the updates since then are mostly for the better in terms of salability. To quote GS, "Sell, baby, sell."

I haven't lived in that house year round in forty years. I found myself mentally reconstructing what each room looked like in the seventies and eighties. If only the walls could tell what they've seen and heard: my sisters' dramatic teen angst, my furtive gender explorations, my mother's drunkenness, my father swearing as he hurt himself during house and garden projects. But also music echoing off the floors as one of us practiced; the dinner table conversations that so often seemed to degenerate into something, well, degenerate; all the plants that I didn't know were exotic and the Florida critters right outside the doors.

Could it have been better? In that time and place, with my parents and sisters, probably not. And it sure as hell could have been worse.

I hope it becomes a good home again for somebody soon, and not just because of the money.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: the cello concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns

brithistorian

7 July
- Wolf Hall: A Novel (Hilary Mantel)
9 July
- Komi Can't Communicate, vol. 23 (Tomohito Oda)
- The Cartoonists Club, (Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud)

rebeccmeister

I can't even remember where I left off. Ah yes. I didn't even get to blogging about taking my research students on a boating adventure Thursday morning. That was pretty entertaining, but definitely kept me very busy.

Friday I got all geared up and went bike camping with a small group of local bike people. We rode out to the Beebe Hill State Forest, where we camped out at a leanto and watched all of the fireworks shows along the Hudson River from the top of the fire tower there. Incredible views.

S was going to join up with the bike camping expedition on Saturday, but it fizzled out, so instead he and I just met up at Kay's Pizza at Burden Lake, ate lunch (not pizza, they weren't open yet), then biked home. If nothing else that at least got S out of the house for some miles.

That meant that instead of more biking on Sunday, I could get chores done, and then we headed over to Wolff's Biergarten to help a rowing teammate celebrate her birthday.

I'm feeling pretty frazzled today, but it's the penultimate day for my research students, so my goal is to just power through the day. I'm having them come over for a pizza dinner tonight, plus a DIY project to celebrate the end of our summer research period. We've gotten a lot done!

But I could really use some down time. Soon.

marthawells

Kerr County Flood Relief Fund

The Kerr County Flood Relief Fund supports relief and rebuilding efforts after the flood of July 4, 2025. Your generosity helps our neighbors recover.

The Community Foundation - a 501(c)(3) public charity serving the Texas Hill Country - will direct funds to vetted organizations providing rescue, relief, and recovery efforts as well as flood assistance. The Fund will support the communities of Hunt, Ingram, Kerrville, Center Point, and Comfort. All donations are tax-deductible, and you will receive a receipt for your gift.

https://cftexashillcountry.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=4201

And Kerrville Pets Alive! is taking donations for rescue and fostering lost pets.

https://kerrvillepetsalive.com/?link_id=3&can_id=588b5a597b5d30fd7e36b213e5ba6987&source=email-freedom-is-fought-for-not-given&email_referrer=email_2803907&email_subject=how-you-can-help-texas-flood-victims&&

brithistorian

This morning I was going to listen to Funkadelic's One Nation Under a Groove, but for one reason or another it's not available on YouTube Music, which is my streaming service of choice. So instead I decided to listen to American Eats Its Young. I'm only five songs in (out of 14) and I'm just blown away. I think it's both an amazing sign of how forward-thinking George Clinton was and a disheartening sign of how similar this country is today to what it was in 1972[^1], when this album was released, that the political messages in this album are still amazingly relevant today. If you don't have an hour and 10 minutes to listen to the whole album, I'd recommend the songs "If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause" and "Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time."

[^1] Whether that's a result of lack of progress or of progress followed by regression is a discussion for another time.

01d55 posting in

girlgenius_lair

Look at me, I'm the Baron

elainegrey

Things i've done with my vacation:

"Mowed" with Mary Jane, our wheeled string trimmer aka weed whacker. I've mowed the past week with the same line. I've never had it last so long. I guess i haven't gotten it tangled up in branches and grapevines and shrubs. I've done some of the meadow and some of the future shed site, a so-so job around the outside perimeter and a good bit of the mossy glade, as well as the remaining bit of my "the best grass ever" (Dichanthelium laxiflorum) lawn.

I also mowed a tiny bit of the "orchard" this morning with our new electric mower, up until the rain started. This mower is dedicated to doing tame areas. Our old mower, with its notched and worn blade (that i sharpen, but there are no replacement blades available) i'll keep using for less tame areas. Unfortunately i hit something metal hidden in the high grass with the new mower. I hope it wasn't too damaging.

Picked berries. Shared lots of blueberries with my sister's family. Got the tall ladder set up at the mulberry tree and ruined a pair of shorts with berry juice from a mesh bag i was wearing to collect picked berries while i was up the ladder. Dehydrated a couple trays of mulberries, and have two trays of mulberries waiting to dehydrate. They are ripening up a little more, plus we're in Chantal's rain bands today. Seems reasonable to wait a day to run the dehydrator. I've got a bag of frozen mulberries, and i am slowly collecting blueberries in the freezer.

The figs are beginning to come in and i am so pleased with my pruning job. The tree makes a room, with a clear area underneath, but the branches droop down like an umbrella. And the tallest still can be reached from the shorter ladder.

Egg rolls! I made a batch of filling with carrots and mung beans i sprouted, and then have fried up a couple batches in the air fryer. Very satisfying. I also rolled up some figs with shaved Parmesan cheese. Yums!

Quick rolls - i used a Pillsbury crescent roll sheet and dabbed with cream cheese pats, blueberries, and pecans. Rolled up and cut into "twirls" and baked. Also very yum.

There was also laundry. It's almost all caught up.

I went out with my sister on Wednesday night to a high tech restaurant (order on your phone, pull your own beer (and cider) from a wall of taps paying with a special bracelet. Karaoke was happening and was mildly entertaining. Also went to her house to hang out on the evening of the 4th of July.

I've been playing a little Balatro, a game Christine's been playing for ... a year? ... mostly to delight her. Exponentile remains very diverting, like a fidget toy, although i am not playing nearly as well as my initial games. Admittedly i am listening to novels as i play. Finished a relisten of yet another of the Mary Russell novels, Locked Rooms. Next is The Language of Bees, which leads into The God of the Hive. I listened to The God of the Hiveearlier this year, randomly picking from the list, and that prompted me to begin the relistening from the beginning. I also bought a Ilona Andrews book to finish a trilogy since the public library no longer has it, and added the list of all the Ilona Andrews books i have binged on in the past months to Zotero. And yesterday i started the Retrieval Artist series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch at OpenLibrary, as that looks like enough to keep me busy while i am in this escapist mental place.

This morning i was pondering how i could set time aside to grieve and emotionally connect with the distress of the past months. (Really, starting with Jan 20.) I think i will try to do sun salutations in the evening, using adaptions at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcJvBMYxQl0&t=294s.

brithistorian

I do not have perfect pitch. Not only do I not have good absolute pitch (i.e. "That's a C#."), I don't really have good relative pitch (i.e. "This note is higher than that note."). Which makes it kind of funny, how much I enjoy music, both listening and playing. So that's why I've come here to borrow your ears. In "Stupid in Love" by Max and Huh Yunjin, at around 2:19 when they sing "Book a flight to Paris only one way," am I correct in thinking that he's singing a higher note than her? It sounded that way to me when I was listening to it in the car yesterday, then I started second-guessing myself, thinking it might be an illusion because he was singing in the upper part of his range while she was singing in the lower part of hers. Then I tried listening to it under headphone this morning and I started thinking that maybe they were singing the same note, and now I can't even hear it properly. And so I've come here to borrow your ears. Any thoughts?

sistawendy

I got around to something that I'd been meaning to for years: I finally rode Miss Indigo Bike across the SR 520 floating bridge*. The current bridge there opened in 2017, complete with a lane for peds & bikes, which the previous bridge there lacked. It took me eight years, but I did it.

How'd it go? Well, getting onto the trail involved a few wrong turns and backtracking. There isn't any signage on the Burke-Gilman Trail** telling you how to even go south, much less get on SR-520. The pedestrian-and-bike overpass that gets you safely across the 6-lane arterial has been there for ten years***, but neau, there's no sign telling you how to find it. This looks like a job for a guerrilla.

How's the actual ride? It's a fantastic way to zen all the way out. Bike traffic was light, with a high proportion of serious cyclists, and the weather and the view were right on. And the high rises at the east & west ends aren't that bad, at least if you're used to Phinney Ridge. I stopped at the east end and took a picture, natch. How long did I take? About two hours, including all the doubling back and the break at the far end.

Thence to brunch on the Hill at Lost Lake with Comfy Lady! Her job, in public health, is under direct threat from Trump's gangsters, which... urgh! But otherwise, it was lovely. Happiness is eating outdoors this time of year.

Went home, read, got groceries too delicate for a messenger bag, made dinner, and crashed hard. Seriously, I lay down at about 1930 thinking I'd nap for a couple of hours. I ended up sleeping over nine hours in my clothes & makeup with the blinds & bedroom door still open. I guess the ride caught up with me. Welp, now I know how to cure my own insomnia. Luckily, I didn't have any firm evening plans.

*That's right, kids, a concrete pontoon bridge. We have three of them here in Washington state: two across Lake Washington, which borders Seattle to the east, and one at Hood Canal on the other side of Puget Sound.
**The Burke-Gilman used to be a railroad right of way that got turned into a paved trail not quite fifty years ago. It hugs the waterfront in Seattle's north end, including the University of Washington, for which it's a commuter artery. It runs up the west side of Lake Washington all the way to its northern end.
***The overpass over Montlake Blvd. was built as part of the project for the University of Washington light rail station, and it was an excellent idea. The station is right next to the sportsball stadia. Across from the station is the bulk of the UW campus, of course, and kitty corner is the enormous UW Medical Center. Just south of there is a drawbridge. So yeah, there's a high density and volume of irritated drivers at that intersection, just what you don't want as a bicyclist.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: Paul Simon, "Graceland"

madgastronomer

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madgastronomer

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brithistorian

A. and I have recently started watching Lie to Me. We're up to s2e7 and I've got a couple of questions. After my recent experience with Person of Interest, I'm coming to you hoping that one of you will either know the answers or else care little enough about Lie to Me spoilers that you'll be willing to try to find the answers:

What's up with the way Lightman walks? He just sort of flops around as he walks, and he tends to stand with his head tilted. I've come up with three possible explanations, but of course it might be none of them:
1. Something in Lightman's past (which we'll learn about later in the series) explains it.
2. It's an effort to try to make Tim Roth look shorter. (A. and I were both very surprised when I looked it up and he's 5'8"—we had both thought he was shorter than that.)
3. It's just How Tim Roth Walks™.
Is the science in the show at all accurate? If so, to what degree is it accurate and to what degree is it handwavium?

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tylik

December 2023

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Page Summary

rebeccmeister - Seen around town
rebeccmeister - Good times in the garden [gardening]
01d55 in girlgenius_lair - Wednesday's Comic
sistawendy - Because of course there's a hitch.
brithistorian - Book reaction: Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)
brithistorian - Musical fanfic
rebeccmeister - Recent projects [projects, art, rowing, ants]
elainegrey - Chantal (weather, f&f)
sistawendy - My mom's house is listed online.
brithistorian - Books read, July 2025
rebeccmeister - Still running too high-octane [status]
marthawells - July 4 Flood Relief
brithistorian - Album of the day: Funkadelic, America Eats Its Young
01d55 in girlgenius_lair - Monday's Comic
elainegrey - (garden, f&f, cooking, chapter 4, reading notes, games)
brithistorian - AKICIDW: Ear training
sistawendy - Miss Indigo Bike wears me out, etc.
madgastronomer - Further update
madgastronomer - Safe and sound
brithistorian - AKICIDW: Questions about Lie to Me (hoping for answers without spoilers)

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