kaffy_r | Recent Entries

I Can Make Progress, Sometimes.

I've been depressed since November, as I've mentioned more than once. How depressed? I found myself unable to open the Christmas and holiday cards Bob and I received. At first, it was because we weren't sending out cards and I felt as if I couldn't open and enjoy cards when I hadn't sent cards for others to enjoy. Days passed, then weeks, where the pile of unopened cards became something I couldn't bear to look at.

Yeah, depression, making weird inaction a daily thing.

But today I opened them all. And to everyone on my f'list who was lovely enough to send me, Bob, or the both of us, cards, thank you! I'm sorry I wasn't able to send you cards, but I hope to change that in the next holiday season.

I'm choosing to believe that opening the cards was a step in the right mental direction.

Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Mixtape #3"

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I went looking for an image of Dr. King to share today, one that might comfort me, and allow me to remember a true, tough, complicated, radical American hero.

The image I chose was of the King memorial in downtown Washington, D.C.

Look at him. He isn't calm. He isn't accomodating. He isn't kumbayah in the least.

He is angry. He's holding back that anger, employing all the patience he can. He's angry at us. He's angry at me.

He has every right to be angry. And he will not be moved.

This is the man who worked tirelessly for civil and human rights, despite being cursed at, being shot at, being jailed, having his home bombed, having his country call him an outside agitator because he would not stay silent about American racism, American violence.

This is the man who angered those in power when he pivoted from civil rights as he sought to bring working class whites and blacks together for economic justice; when he spoke out against the Vietnam war; when he turned from having a dream to knowing how that dream might end.

He could be gentle, but that wasn't all he was. If it had been all he was, he would have been smothered and quickly dismissed. He knew what he risked by being stubborn, by being persistent, by staying angry at the wrongs of this country. He knew what he risked by being focused on working to eradicate those wrongs. Like John Lewis, he understood the need for getting into good trouble.

Not unlike Malcolm X, really.

That's why so many people still hate him. Those who don't hate him, and even those who idolize a sanitized version of him, are made uncomfortable by him and by the truths he preached.

Remember this man - the angry, determined, stubborn, righteous man. And let's all promise to do better.

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: the furnace

Temperature: 17F, Feels Like 2F

But Weather Underground promises that we'll be up to the balmy 20s tomorrow - what's that you say? Well, sure, we'll have wind chills in the single digits. But the 20s! I'm going to focus on that.

I don't have a lot to talk about right now, and I need to respond to comments in my last post, but I did want to note that Biden's final good deed (at least until he - I hope - gives blanket pardons to the folks That Man plans to go after in the first 5 minutes after he takes the oath of office) was finally helping negotiate a large-scale cease fire in Gaza. He should have done it months and months ago, but I hope he's outmaneuvered Bibi this one time.

Biden ... one of the better presidents we've had in recent decades, and one of the better presidents who occasionally fucked up big-time (Merrick Garland, I'm looking at you.) I'll miss him, though. I'm a former centrist who can still understand why people make the mistake of being centrist today, and Joe's one of them.

I'm thinking of deactivating my Xitter account on the 20th. I sure as hell won't be watching That Man slime his way into The Oval Office.

wrt to the move, I'm going to fill out an application for Tideways, the senior living co-op that my Nana lived in before her death, since my brother sent it to me. When he did so, he mentioned that Mum had an application in, and was given several opportunities to get a unit there, "but she chose another path." I know why: Tideways forbids pets, and Mum had her beloved Toy and Liam that she would never have given away. It's a shame, but we're like Mum; we're not abandoning Carter.

One of my condo building neighbors is going to try to get me in touch with a friend of his, who described the friend as "a brilliant realtor." Once I've gotten a couple of larger home improvements done, I hope I get this gentleman and perhaps one or two other real estate agents to do a walk-through of our place, to give us a range of potential sale prices.

Still listening to SKZ, and I've begun to listen to at least one more male K-Pop group, Ateez. They're good, even if they don't have quite the creative control the Kids have. I also need to go back and relisten to Black Pink, and start listening to New Jeans on the distaff side.

And that's all for now.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Phobia"

How Does a Poem Happen?

Back in the 1990s, oh, so long ago, I wrote a fair amount of poetry for myself; not many pieces and most of them short, but they did come into being. Since that time, I haven't written much poetry, if any.

If I had to guess why, I'd say it's because I was putting my creative* efforts into my growing fic output - certainly that was the case after 2006 brought me the revised Doctor Who. But that's only one reason. I think I also lost the urge to write poetry. I can't really parse why and it probably doesn't matter, even if the analytical portion of my brain continues to gnaw at that like a dog does a bone.

The urge hasn't died completely, though, and recently it appears to have awakened from its slumber. In the most recent itration of winter weather here in Chicago, I found myself looking at the melting and freezing snow on the ground outside my windows. It's a common thought for me, one that invites meditation on the nature of micro topographies.

There's nothing in my head that tries to link that topography to the human condition, or to my condition, and perhaps that's why my thoughts haven't previously come together to create poetry. Then again, there's one thing I've learned - finally, and you'd think it would have dawned on me far earlier - is that poetry is about what one writes about and not necessarily about the human condition. (Really, I should have connected the dots far, far earlier, given my appreciation of poetry I've read and appreciated or loved.)

Now that it's dawned on me that this imagery is enough in and of itself to work with, I find myself wondering about how other folks handle their poetry creation process. What do you do, how do you think about what you write about, and how do you integrate imagery of any kind into your work?

* A brief detour into grouchy grammarian country. When the hell did the world start nouning the adjective "creative" when the perfectly good noun "creator" is standing there? Yes, yes, the OED says the adjective got nouned in the early 1900s. All that tells me is that there were language ignoramuses back then as well. And yes, this is a hill I will die on.

*walks away, grumbling about her missing carpet slippers.*

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: the home office

A Couple of Things Make a List

1) It's snowing outside and, after I've had my first cup of coffee, dried my hair (just got out of the shower), and completed this post - whatever it may turn out to be - I have to gird my loins and wield my shovel at the snowflake horde. There are currently only two or three unit owners who undertake the job and I unwisely volunteered to be one of them. Ah well; it's a tad easier than wrestling with the lawn mower.

EDIT, as of Sunday evening; I went out and shoveled our courtyard and part of the sidewalk on one side of the building. I couldn't do as much as I wanted to, and later in the day the temperature rose just enough to melt the remaining ice and snow from the areas I'd tackled. But it doesn't erase the necessity of shoveling. And another unit owner came out and did some shoveling as well. I was reminded that we have one of our quarterly unit owners' meetings tomorrow night. Not something I'm looking forward to, but again, something that needs to be done. Sigh. I guess I'd better read the minutes from the last meeting. Sigh, again.

( Read more... )

Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "My Side"

James Earl Carter Jr., 1924-2024

( Read more... )

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: the living room

Title: Worlds and Worlds and Unexpected Joy
Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends (Netflix animated series)
Characters: Ekko, AU Ekko (S02E07), AU Powder (S02E07), Isha, Vander, Warwick, Viktor, Jayce
Words: 1,268 per AO3
Spoiler warning: Spoilers for the entirety of Arcane Season 2.
Summary: There are worlds and worlds and worlds out there. Remember that. Walking between them is no mean feat, not with The Anomaly. Which isn't an anomaly. Listen ....
Author's notes: I adore Arcane. In the first season, I loved it even when it tore my heart out. In the second season? More of the same, and oh, so much respect for the people who brought it to life, even as they tore my heart out again. After the first season, I wrote what I considered a fixit, saving Powder's family. It turned into a series called "Changing Lanes." This story, however, is a standalone focusing on the second season, the Hexcore and its possibilities. I'm not sure who the speaker is. Heimerdinger? Perhaps. Ultimately, though, it's a hope that the Hexcore can be a tool to save people I loved, even if saving isn't what we might consider saving
One final note: Isha the wordless is, some people have hypothesized, hearing impaired. That may be the case and, in this story, I think it might be true.
Edited by: my beloved dr_whuh
Disclaimer: All characters are the properties of Riot Games, Fortiche Productions, Alex Yee and Christian Linke. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin. I just love the world, and all its denizens.

*** *** *** ( Read more... )

-30-

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: the living room

Odd Stories, Wonderful Stories

I've had these tabs open for a bit and I thought I'd share them. One's very odd, and I wish I knew if anyone has been able to rescue the poor deer from its fashionable vest. I saw the second - a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary - on the CBC site. I inadvertently closed that tab and worried that the CBC would turn off access to the documentary to non-Canadian viewers, since it doesn't usually allow people outside the country to access items that aren't tiny news clips. Luckily, it turns out the documentary is now on YouTube. Huzzah! (The documentary is particularly wonderful for me, since the young fashion designer is from Nova Scotia.)

So here's the link to the story about the deer.

And here's the YouTube documentary, under a cut. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "Fauna and Flora"

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "Fauna and Flora"

Joy to the World

We finally got to see "Joy to the World" last night, and I'm so glad we did. Some initial thoughts are all I can pull together right now.

1. For an atheist, The Moff sure writes as if he'd like to be a believer.
2. Once again, nobody dies. Or rather, those who die live again in an afterlife. Yep. Totally not spiritual. The important thing is that you believe it, Steven.
3. I started looking for kids and was a bit disappointed that I couldn't see them - until Joy exploded and told the Doctor about her own mother.
4. This has to be the first time a Who writer referenced COVID.
5. I wish Anita had gone with the Doctor. Serving at the Time Hotel is fine, I suppose, but it's a bit like kissing your sister. Damn, she was great.
6. Villengard! I started looking around for bananas ....
7. Oh my goodness, I love Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor. Bob, whose NuWho Doctor is 11, bless, said "This one is almost as much a favorite for me." I agree. He has an inner glow that I'm so happy to see. I've loved dark and darkish Doctors, like 9 and 12, but the ones that glow, like 13 before 15, are absolutely central to the Whoniverse.

(A completely-not-about-the-episode note: I'm getting really old and deaf. The various English accents, from actors saying their lines very, veerry fast, never seemed to throw me before. It increasingly does, and it's even more diffficult with the Moff, because his characters speak so damned fast, and generally talk over ach other. *grumbles like the old lady I am*)

Current Mood: tipsy
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "Hop" being analyzed by Roscoe

Still Aten't Dead

( Unhappy whinging ahoy )

Current Location: heading to bed
Current Music: DPR Ian "Winterfall"

Soup, Stays, Sliders and More

I'm ending the day with a smile on my face, for a number of reasons.

( And the reasons are under here. )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Blueprint"

My Hand Above the "Buy" Button

I am laughing at myself. Ruefully, and with a bit of self ... not loathing, not nearly, but with more than a bit of self-disapproval. Only a bit, because in the end, I did the right thing.

And what that might be, kaffy_r, you ridiculous Stray Kids stan?

I almost ignored my better judgement, my determination to save money, my intention to continue hiking my credit rating and my credit line to handle condo improvements, in order to buy a ticket to the June 26 Wrigley Field SKZ concert.

I've been joking with Bob about how my yearning to buy SKZ tickets while knowing I can't is torture.

Torture, hahaha, amirite?

By this morning, I'd gone to the ticket purchase site far too many times (I mean, going to the site even once, given what I knew I couldn't do, was "far too many times".) So the only torture I was experiencing was my own fault. I finally told myself that I'd try for a ticket, if a second show was added. I figured that mental trick would keep me happy without spending a dime, since I was fairly certain they wouldn't be adding another show.

And yet at 2:58 p.m., two minutes before the tickets were to go on sale, I found myself on the ticket site, my hand hovering over the "buy" button.

Then I thought about the fact that we aren't going to be sending holiday gifts to the people we love, because we're saving money for the move north. How could I be this selfish, this self-indulgent?

I turned off my laptop, shut it, went to the livingroom and put on an Erroll Garner jazz CD, then started looking through my cookbooks for a split pea soup recipe to make tomorrow. I listened to the entire album, and remembered how much I like Garner's piano playing. I sat in the livingroom listening to him and reading recipes until about 3:30 p.m., when I knew the tickets would be gone.

Tonight, I caught some of the Lolla concert on YouTube, and I'm still enjoying SKZ music right now.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me?

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Haven"

Thursday's Child Has Far to Go

Do you want to know how badly wired my brain has been lately? I was convinced that Thanksgiving was this week. I kept looking at my Google calendar, and wondering why the holiday, which takes place on Thursday, was taking place on Saturday. There it was, "Labor Thanksgiving Day" noted on Saturday!

Bob reminded me today that Thanksgiving is indeed on Thursday. Next Thursday. But, but - it says here on my Google Calendar that Satur-

Oh.

I have "Japanese holidays" turned on For Reasons. And Labor Thanksgiving Day is a Japanese holiday. Perhaps the "Labor" part of the holiday name should have twigged me to that. Sigh. The excuse "I had a lot on my mind" only obtains if I actually have a mind present and accounted for. And as the probably (and rightly) problematic main character of the Zippy the Pinhead comic said in one of his uncomfortably surreal outings, "My brain is on vacation in the Carlsbad Caverns."

Still, I managed to complete all but one interview for my latest news feature, and submit an invoice for the magazine article. (The latter had to be submitted twice, since I realized, moments after Gmail's "undo" ability had expired, that I'd submitted an invoice for one of my earlier magazine articles. Cue an immediately apologetic email with the proper invoice attached. I'm trying to figure out how long my brain is going to enjoy the beauties of the caverns ....

I've been bitterly amused to learn that Stray Kids are performing at Wrigley Field in June, an event that promises to be a 3 hour concert.

Just after we've made our decision, and every spare dime is now going into savings for the northward journey; no Christmas/Holiday presents for anyone and we're going to ask people not to give us gifts. And probably no holiday cards, which I'm going to miss doing. Reader, I am disappoint.

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Booster"

Welcome to the Working Week

Tomorrow I'll be working on a quick for-money story, and invoicing the last feature I did for the folks who pay very, very well. Then I'm going to try to bake some cookies, and figure out a healthy supper for Bob and me. And possibly work on my fiction.

I'll also be reading up on some of the expected changes to Medicare in 2025. For at least as long as we'll be here in 2025, we need to get as much bang for our buck as possible. We have a video call on Tuesday with our very nice, and very good, medical insurance rep., and I want to understand as much about our potential choices as I can. Our current Medicare Part G plans have increased their monthly premium costs over 2024, and if we can, we'd like to check out some options.

Ah, the glamorous life of senior citizens.

Bob is in considerable neck and shoulder pain right now, as his last spine area injection has pretty much worn off. Luckily, he'll be getting a new shot on Friday. Once that takes, he'll be able to focus more on setting up our moving game plan. I'm thinking of putting together a flow chart so we can keep track of what we need to get done, and when.

I have only the slightest idea of how to do that, but I put together something of the like to keep the plot of my second fanfic novel from going off the rails. It wasn't pretty, but it worked, so I may try that cack-handed version of a flow chart for this much more important task.

I've been having fun watching as the number of people joining Bluesky climbed from about 17.5 million early Saturday to more than 19 million as of Sunday night. I'm also having fun wandering around my new social platform of choice. (I'll probably still hang some on Threads, but as someone said over on Xitter, he wasn't going to swap one billionaire-owned site for another billionaire-owned site. Makes sense.

And we talked to Andy and Em last night. We told them our decision, and it broke my heart to see Andy's face during the subsequent discussion. I have a feeling that my heart will be breaking for him a lot. For a lot of other things, obviously, but he is my beloved son, and I hate hurting him.

Fuck that man and his clowncar of fascists, neo-nazis, and would-be Gilead Commanders. I wanted to die in my home, in Chicago, in my adopted country.

But to end on that ... nah.

I'm still bopping to Stray Kids. I'm also checking in on a couple of other groups. KPop is fun. There. That's better.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "Awkward Silence"

Never Forget

This was our past, and it is still with us.

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

And

kerravonsen was right; this announces our present and future all too well.

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: CBC Remembrance Day ceremony

Early Election Returns

Make me feel like ...

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: MSNBC

A Song for Our Time. Or, You Know, for Today

I'll probably post again today, although I still have some vacuuming to do. And since I'm thinking of ~~drinking heavily~~ cautiously imbibing after the polls close on the East Coast, subsequent posts may becoming increasingly incoherent. So for now, I'll leave you with this. They're a real family, they have done a good number of fantastic song parodies. You might have seen this but for those of you who haven't, I present "Bohemian Trumpsidy." You're welcome. *goes off to find the vacuum cleaner*

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: stressed
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: See above

I Still Dream About The Future

I've been running silent over the past week or so, as I struggled through completing my latest for-money story, and saw BB through that awful rite of passage we seniors have to go through - colonoscopies suck, y'all, but we both got through it. Today I completed the story, or the first draft of it, and with any luck it'll pass muster with my editor.

Up next? Vacuuming. Damp mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors. Completing a LoC for my friend's last two 'zine editions. Thinking about another potential story plot. Thinking about trying to resume my long-ignored poetry efforts. Finishing off the kimchi and rice chicken dish I put together yesterday, and edited a bit today to calm the kimchi down a tad.

Oh, and hoping. And dreaming about the future. Hoping and dreaming about a future in these United States where we have a chance to pick up the pieces of our messy and incomplete democracy, and somehow glue them at least partly back together.

( More scattered political thoughts below )

Go vote tomorrow, if you're American and haven't already done so. Help maintain our unsteady and incomplete democracy.

See you on the other side.

* It should go without saying that there are religious believers with good hearts. Y'all know who I'm talking about here.
** I still can't vote in the U.S. so I suppose I shouldn't consider this my country. But it is.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "DLC"

Hi - I'm Not Quite as Stressed as I Was Friday Night

That might be because I finally got my for-money interview transcribed today. It takes me about 2.5 hours to transcribe a 59 minute interview; but I can now put the story together. I'm so glad that, as my manual dexterity and ability to write up interviews has declined, my ability to record interviews and then transcribe them has increased. I think back to my years of blithely telling people that I'd always prefer written notes "because then I can see the pattern of the interview, which makes it easier to write my story."

I was a bit of an idiot back then.

Speaking of recordings, I was very glad to watch last night's Kamala rally in Houston, thanks to MSNBC's "The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell" being on my "record" list. The network ran the whole rally. It was amazing, and upped my hope quotient. I hope I'll be able to see the rally where Michelle Obama spoke in the same fashion.

Lawrence was in the middle of reading a joint statement from Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward about the WaPo decision, when they cut to the rally, so I haven't had a chance to hear what he might have said about the whole disreputable situation. And, oh yeah, after sleeping on it, I cancelled my subscription, and began putting $60 a year toward The Guardian. I'm also considering whether or not to cancel my Amazon Prime account, which some folks have suggested would hit Bezos harder.

I saw a conversation on FaceBook (I still occasionally peek in there, although I then usually run away, screaming internally) where one of my fairly disabled acquaintances made the point that folks like them can be incredibly dependent on Amazon for everything from grocery delivery to medical supply delivery - and for contact with the outer world. I understand that. If one needs Amazon in that fashion, then hang on to it, and don't let anyone guilt you (not that this person would be guilted easily, but they were very angry at someone saying that everyone needed to do that.)

I've been watching episodes of a Korean survival show, Kingdom: Legendary War, from 2020, featuring six KPop bands vying to win the contest. Yes, SKZ was on, but I'm getting a chance to hear several other bands I've heard about, but never heard. It's cool.

I don't have much else to say, but I wish all of you a good night, and a good morning. Hope to see you here again.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "The Tortoise and the Hare"

But Music Generally Makes It Better. Mostly. More or Less.

It's been a fairly boring 8 days since my last post. Which is probably good, given my low-grade political stress. Oh, hell, let's not pretend it's low-grade. It's off the damn charts. Eleven days. Dear sweet baby pickles, 11 days. To be followed, undoubtedly, by a couple of weeks of unknowing. As so many people in the online commentariat now remind us, it's no longer Election Day.

TFG is outright wanting his generals to "be like Hitler's generals" (hey, Agent Orange, do you mean the ones that died by suicide in the days immediately before or after Adolph taking that route in the bunker? Or the generals who tried to kill him more than once, but who wreeee stymied by satanic good luck on his part, or possibly through their incompetence? Those generals? What a complete ignoramus.)

What's worse are decisions by the LA Times and the Washington Post's owners to avoid endorsing for the presidential race. As Jeff Tiedrich calls them, the worthless scribblers of the corporate press, or at least WaPo's, tried to cloak this in high-minded bullshit. I already avoid the NY Times. I don't want to cancel my subscription to WaPo, but JFC .... More to come, since I haven't quite made up my mind. If I do, I can start paying for my Guardian news, which would be good.

And tonight, deep in the wee smalls over in the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu decided to up the "how much further can I drive military craziness around me" ante by bombing military sites in and around Tehran. In response, of course, to Tehran throwing missiles at Israel. In response to Israel killing various Hamas and Hezbollah military leaders. In response to, in response to, in response to, in fucking response to--

Meanwhile, more kids are dying in Gaza, the West Bank and now in Lebanon.

Remind me again why humans are worth keeping around?

But there is music, I suppose.

And art of all kindsl stained glass windows, deathless books and poetry from all corners of the Earth, from all centuries that we can investigate.

And people who rush into danger to save other people. And folks who pack their SUVs with stuff folks in hurricane-ravaged southern U.S. states desperately need. And other folks who fight to get food to Gazans. And people who try to help Ukraine. And folks who try to save Hoolock Gibbons in Assam state, India. And people who report wrongdoings big and small, regardless of the danger to themselves. There's Jack Smith. There's people who still fight for justice.

I guess we're worth saving. By the skin of the universe's teeth, but I suppose I need to take the win.

Time to put on more music. Loud.

(We did manage to get a new light and fan combo installed in the bedroom, replacing the light-fan combo that died about a month ago. Oh, and I've been approved for my miniscule Canadian pension. Oh, and I managed to put more chapters of Gleaning Musutachi up over on

originalkaffy_r So there's all that on my tiny personal stage. Back to playing music very loud ....)

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Another Day"/"Phobia"

When Are Stamps Not Stamps?

( The answer under here! )

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Charmer"

Update Time

After my frayed fly nerves, I appear to have numbed myself to the little monsters. Or perhaps it's just that the dangling fly papers hanging from four windows have begun to collect six-legged corpses. I did see one very determined fly extricate itself from a glancing collision with one, but it appears to be the only one to escape its doom. And with any luck - mine, not its - it will run headlong into another strip.

Bob and I also managed to put up the kitchen cupboard shelf that collapsed on me yesterday. It gave me the chance to reorder two shelves, and to get rid of some items that really needed getting rid of. So; lemonade out of lemons. I was able to a pot of tonjiro; I didn't have sliced pork belly, but I did have some good quality thick-cut bacon. With an adjustment to account for the bacon's higher salt content, it turned out well.
I've also finally gotten the last bits of information from a feature interviewee that I need to write the feature that's been hanging fire.

And I can finally tackle my Stray Kids piece for my friend. That's going to be a lot more fun.

Oh, and I'm also reading Jack Smith's latest filing.

Huh; there was one other thing I was going to talk about, but it's flown from my brain. I'll take that as my cue to head to bed.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: heading to bed
Current Music: Stray Kids: Runners

Or Perhaps This Is What We Really Are

Hamas. Israel. Lebanon. Iran. Gaza. West Bank. Hezbollah. Murder. Mass murder. And dead children everywhere. I hear people mourning, saying "God have mercy." Never mind any damn god. It's us. It's us. Dead children everywhere. It's us, we humans. We damnable humans. We kill them. We kill the children, directly or indirectly. Damn all of you. Damn all of us. Damn you. Damn me.

Current Mood: enraged
Current Location: leaving the house

Floored by the Flies
or, Why Flymageddon Has Me Twitchy as Hell

So you, my friends, may already know that I am not a fan of insects. I'm not a non-fan of all insects, mind; butterflies and moths are lovely; ants, while I don't like them in my house, I respects ants. And there are many insects that I recognize are important in the circle of life. Even *shudder* cicadas.

Not mosquitoes ... well, yes, they're important as food for birds. So, OK, they're not completely useless.

But houseflies?

There is no reason for them. No. Damn. Reason. At. All.

I loathe them. I loathe their ugliness, I loathe their buzzing sound. I loathe - I loathe everything about them.

And over the past three days, Bob and I have killed at least 10 of the little fuckers. We've killed them with fly swatters. We've killed them with Raid flying insect spray. Well, I've generally been the "spray them and watch them die" person, because I don't have the kind of hand-eye coordination, or the reflexes, to successfully wield a fly swatter. As a result, our kitchen and dining room windows are now fogged with a poisonous, oily sheen that I will have to clean up.

The flies are coming in somewhere in gaps - gaps that we can't easily spot - around our window frames. These are windows we installed at considerable cost to improve on the really terrible windows we previously had. And their secret entry way is a horrible mystery to us.

All I know at this point is that my nerves are frayed. I've been unable to concentrate on things I need to concentrate on. I've been a mess.

Tomorrow, however, I'm going to employ a non-poisonous, non-fly-swatter method of capturing and killing flies: a 50/50 mix of apple cider vinegar and dish soap in bowls. My google-fu appears to show this as a wide-spread favorite.

Wish me luck. It's such a little thing to have tattered nerves about, given the state of this world, from wars almost everywhere to natural disasters killing people (more than 120 dead and hundreds more missing in states hit by Hurricane Helene, just to name one).

But it's still a thing.

Current Mood: distressed
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: MSNBC

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kaffy_r

May 2025

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Grasping at Grace (and Growth)

Transformation is Inescapable

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