kaffy_r | Recent Entries

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

A Few Things Make a Post. More or Less.

( Work stuff )

( Original stuff, and it's fall! )

( Lolla, redux, and Korean weirdness )

( Family stuff )
Now, I've got to get to bed. I'm volunteering at a fundraising golf tournament tomorrow. I hate golf. But I like the news outlet that's raising money this way, and I really like my editor, who needs all the volunteers he can get. Golf. Which, I am sure I don't need to remind you, is flog, spelled backward.

Ta, folks.

Current Mood: moody
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids, "Mixtape #2"

Oh, FFS

Well, just great. More gunfire, maybe. More MAGA rage-activity in 3-2-1 ....

Fuck.

Current Mood: infuriated
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: MSNBC

Pictures From A While Back

I've been dealing with ailments over the past week (one because I didn't notice I'd run out of one particular med, without which body and mind can go just a tad haywire), and pain in a new area of my back. Dealing with that as well as some Dreamwidth work have kept me from posting some pictures. Well, one of the pictures is from the spring total eclipse, so that's more than a little delayed. I'd intended to write about it, and never did; I'd intended to post a picture and never did. Today, I remedy that, at least in terms of the photo.

I also got around to taking some pictures of the garden covering the tiny lawn and parkway of a house a block or so from me. I mentioned this home* in a previous post, the one that talked about sunflowers. I'd included the line of flowers along the building across the alley from us, but said the house in question had an explosion of sunflowers and other blooms. I finally stopped my car on the way home, got out, and took some photos.

The eclipse photo was taken on my phone at totality, without a filter - the only time you can do that. I didn't have a filter, and one that a friendly stranger lent me didn't work, not with my clumsy fingers handling it. The picture shows a small dark spot at the center of the sun; for some reason the fact that the entire solar disc was covered doesn't some across visually. But I think you can easily see the strange light that totality created. That's why I love the picture.

The flower house speaks for itself.

*With enough love and care, a house becomes a home.

( See more )

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Brandenburg concertos

Sunflowers and Cicadas

In the growing heat last week and during this week's even hotter days, or more properly in the dark of each stifling night, I heard cicadas shrilling their increasingly desperate love songs, or at least pleas for a hot date. This surprised me. I am used to summer cicadas scraping their legs together in the heat of the day, then calling it a day when night comes around.

Have I simply not noticed night-singing cicadas prior to this year? Or is this something new? And if so, what does it presage? I mean, they're cicadas, even if they are the annual type and not representatives of the two separate hellish hordes that erupted from Americann ground earlier this year, so night-shrieking cicadas must, of necessity, be a sign - an omen, if you will - of something awful.

So I'm kind of hoping it's just a thing I've managed to be deaf to for decades. That only presages my increasing age.

On a completely different, and lovely, subject, sunflowers have been nodding their bright and drowsy heads all over my neighborhood this summer. We've always had a few scattered around in the occasional building garden or intersection lot, but there seem to be so many more this year that I suspect folks planted some last season, and we're all reaping the benefits. I love the fact that one of my sweetly eccentric neighbors planted sunflowers along the edge of her building, just across the alley from the back of our building. (There's a house about a block from our buildings that is a riot of real and plastic blooms, with an overwhelming number of sunflowers in the mix. I smile every time I drive past it.)

Anyhow, I thought I'd show you the sunflowers that Marianne planted. Although you can't see it, a yellow bird was flitting amongst the sunflower stalks. I took the pictures in an effort to see the bird, but you'll have to take it on faith that he or she is there. I can tell, because the yellow of the bird is slightly different than the gold of the sunflowers, but I don't think I could even point viewers to the exact spot.

Ny shot makes them look rather bedraggled.

But still ... sunflowers!

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "Circus"

The Sun, My Lord, the Sun

After my last post, I checked the current temperature. At 10:40 a.m., in my neighborhood, the mercury stands at 95F, with a heat index of 111F. Not that pretty at all. It's supposed to ease after today, but I'll believe that when I experience it.

So I thought it appropriate to share a poem I wrote 29 years ago, in the wake of Chicago's disastrous 1995 summer heat wave, which killed somewhere between 425 and 719 people, depending on what source you check. It also killed our cat Rissa. My late friend Nick absolutely loathed hot weather, which he defined as anything over 65F, so I wrote the poem in his honor (and a bit in Rissa's honor as well.)

*** *** ***

*** *** *** ***

( Read more... )

The storms, spawned like mosquitos in the Gulf,

reached up and embraced us with heat this summer.

The dirty air lay over us, unable to rise.

The buildings labored and moaned to keep us cool

in the merciless downtowns.

We hated our clothing, hated our skins,

bathed uselessly.

We knew our sweat.

The air was thick with oil and garbage,

the effluvia of days that refused to end.

We woke to heat, walked in heat,

sank in it.

It defeated us.

We hid in airless caves, prayed for sundown.

Humid night followed cruel day and we were like children,

looking for kindness,

rewarded with nothing but another storm lingering on the lake's horizon.

Betrayed and bitter,

we leaned on our horns in the clotted intersections.

We clenched our fists

and closed our eyes.

We tasted stale salt on our upper lips,

slammed against the shimmering air, against each other

in realized desperation.

If the cool air had not surprised us,

the northern winds of final, blessed fall —

if the winds had not thinned our blood so that it ran in our veins again....

If we had not been able to breathe again,

we would have succumbed

and walked into the lake,

leaving empty streets echoing with the whine and snap of

useless air conditioners.

to Nick, October 1, 1995

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: the living room

Lord Only Knows ...

... how this day is going to go. It's going to be extremely hot, as I mentioned in my last post, but I do have to go out and get a couple of things from the grocery. And, if I'm lucky, from the pharmacy. I have to check to see if my doctor's office has sent the prescription to the pharmacy. Occasionally I have to nudge them; we both hate it when I have to do that, but I'll probably have to do so this afternoon, since I'm going to be out of my painkiller tomorrow. Fingers crossed, for both the weather and the prescription ....

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: the living room

In the Market for Sweet Potatoes

Did you know that sweet potatoes are good sources of potassium? And did you know potassium is apparently really good tool in a body's fight against muscle cramps and spasms? I thank

minnehaha for reminding me of this, since I'm still dealing with my most recent back spasm event. I like sweet potatoes. I also like avocados, which are apparently another good source of potassium. Bob isn't that fond of avocadoes, with the exception of guacamole, and he loathes sweet potatoes. He'll have to live with my new food faves - and I'll look for foods that he likes, because he needs more potassium, too. Bananas; bananas are good.

I would normally litter that first paragraph with links to the various sites I found with information about potassium (and also magnesium), but today I lack the spoons. I'm considering heading to bed, and it's only 9:23 p.m. I can't even blame my exhaustion on the heat outside, since I haven't braved the outdoors, even to take garbage out to the dumpster. Our blinds and curtains have remained shut today, and will remain shut tomorrow (Tuesday), since tomorrow is supposed to be even more awful: 93F degrees with 55 percent humidity, and a heat index of 104F. Eurgh.

My exhaustion is, instead, undoubtedly due to the continuing spasms. Gotta love the human body.

I've slid back into the habit of checking the American political scene, now that Chicago has bid goodbye to the Democratic Party convention. but I'm still not completely free of my unexpected aversion to said scene.

I did get some work done, setting up two interviews for a feature I need to complete before the end of this week. I consider that a victory.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Location: heading to bed
Current Music: MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell

Thank you, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I've had these three stories opened in my tabs for too long. I think each one is fascinating. So have a look if you'd like.

Thank you for coming to my not-ranty second Sunday post.

An elderly wolf beats the odds

Beavers and Komodo Dragons

A vulture population crash in India and the human deaths that followed

Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Joe Hisaishi; Ghibli music

A Few Things Make a ~~Post~~ Rant

I'm on what I hope is the downward slope of a back spasm event. It wasn't made easier by a freak accident while I was cleaning the tub; a spasm made me lose my balance, and I managed to slam my ribs down onto the lip of the bathtub. I didn't think much of the problem beyond being embarrassed at losing balance while I was on my knees, but the next morning it hurt like hell. Off we went to the urgent care place, where I got an xray. It fortunately showed no rib cracks, but remained painful for a couple of days, and I'm pretty sure it lengthened the spasm event.

It certainly forced me into doing something I would never have done had I not been in pain; heading to bed with painkillers and half an edible gummy each night in the past week, before I had the chance to hear the DNC speeches I wanted to hear live. I was able to hear the speeches the next day, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, but as a political junkie, I felt as if I hadn't been doing my job.

Actually, the folks who let the side down were the TPTB at the DNC. They refused to allow a Palestinian activist time to present a five-minute speech that would highlight the ongoing Israeli war in Gaza and its genocidal effect on non-combatants there. I've read the speech that the activist, a state representative from Georgia, hoped to present; it's as close to anodyne as it could be, respectful about the horror of Oct. 7 and simply asking for an end to Netanyahu's war effort without mentioning Netanyahu, calling for the release of Israeli and Palestinian hostages and speaking with hope of being part of the Democratic party's broad coalition.

Yes, the DNC held a panel about the Palestinian situation during the convention and I think that was extremely important. But denying the speech, not allowing the Gaza situation to be centered for all convention delegates, was, in my opinion, close to unforgiveable, especially considering they rightly gave time to agonized hostage relatives who were arguing for the same war cessation and hostage releases that were a large part of Ruwa Romman's speech.

Bob and I have talked about it, and I think part of the reason was coldly political; TPTB probably envisioned the GQP - especially The Former Guy's presidential campaign - framing that as Democrats being soft on Hamas. Intellectually, I can understand if that was one of the reasons to deny the speech a place on stage.

I think it was still wrong to do that.

Huh. This turned into a political rant. Well, so be it. Perhap something less ranty later.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Carter, purring in my face

So. Lolla.

Yes, I finally got around to posting about it. Bob’s brief hospital stay* and fun with switching mobile phone carriers, complete with SIM card madness**, disrupted my original intent.

Short version:

Attending Lollapalooza to see Stray Kids perform for the first time was an amazing experience — positive and joyful. None of the things my fearful son had worried about came to pass. The heat was reasonable, Lolla provided free water, the food offered for sale wasn’t overpriced. The sun shone, despite weather forecasts that predicted rain and thunderstorms. The crowds were a delight to watch, not a claustrophobic nightmare to survive.

I met other Stray Kids fans, Stays, who were happy to adopt me, a baby Stay. One came from Boston, another from LA, a couple from Evanston, just a few minutes from my place. I know that others came up from North Carolina, a couple reportedly from Paraguay. They loved the band enough to make the journey.

When the time came for the Kids to storm the stage, we were there for it. We couldn’t see the stage ourselves, but we didn’t expect to, given the crowd. Just seeing them on the huge screens behind them, and knowing that they were there below the screens, was enough. We sang along to the songs, we spent 1.5 hours grinning like fools and taking part in a community that included eight young men who loved performing for us.

Long Version:

( Read more... )So here it is, my Lolla report. Too long delayed, and just too damned long.

*He's fine. Medical weirdness, yay.
**Not fun, but taken care of; only us, Maynard ....
***skzoo, not surprisingly stands for Stray Kids Zoo. Each member has an animal totem. As one does. Skzoo merch alone could keep JYP financially afloat.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: heading to bed
Current Music: Stray Kids "Youtiful"

Today Has Arrived and I'm All Aflutter

Yeah, in about an hour, I head downtown to Lollapalooza to take in Stray Kids tonight.

Checklist:

Clear fanny pack, as per Lolla regulations. Purchased the day before yesterday, after racing around trying to find one. Check
Enough of my pain meds to handle today, in the original prescription bottle, as per Lolla regs. (The rest of the Rx is in another bottle in the bedroom.) Check
Activated Lolla wristband, which will get me in, and will also function as a way to pay for the undoubtedly overpriced food I'll need. (Luckily, water is free.) Check.
Check of the weather - hot and humid, but less hot and humid than yesterday, so I may survive. Check.
Sandalwood fan, to be stuffed in my shirt pocket and used to help me survive. Check.
Roll-on sunscreen, to be used liberally, or as far as 3.5 oz. will go (the largest size they'll allow in. Apparently they've trained with the TSA. Check.
Water bottle, empty, as per Lolla regs. It can be filled at free water stations. Check.
Phone, charged up. Check
Portable charger, charged up and ready to charge my phone when it gets low. Purchased yesterday. Check.
Long beige shorts, purchased from Goodwill; a little worn around the leg hems, but they'll protect my upper legs from UV. Check.
White shirt, which won't be tucked in. Fashionable, that's me. Check.
Map of Lolla stages. Check.
Schedule of acts, so I can check out some of them. I've checked about five online; they all seem to be young, white indie bands with videos of them being thoughtful or fun-loving in various outdoor settings. A couple sound promising. Check.
Hat. Bob's rainhat, which will do very nicely. Check.
Sneakers and white socks. Not fashionable, but I'm not wearing either my Birkinstocks or my flip-flops/sandals. That way lies madness blisters, no protection from bbeing stepped on. Sneakers are at least a little better than nothing. Check.

AAaaaaand - me. So nervous I can barely think. I'm excited. I'm revved up. I'm ridiculous.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids: Chk Chk Boom

Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

It was great to listen to President Biden today, as he announced, in a speech at the LBJ Library, a three-part plan for fixing the Supreme Court corruption and anti-democratic mess: a constitutional amendment that would erase the presidential immunity with which the Roberts Court gifted TFG, a proposed 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices, and an enforceable, binding code of ethics governing SCOTUS. Yet another reason for us to keep the White House, keep the Senate, and win back the House.

The more I hear about and read snippets from Project 2025, the more my gorge rises. Jesus Harold Christ ....

As far as VP Harris's search for her own VP choice, I'm rooting for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. I'd liked Josh Shapiro, but learned that he is pretty strongly against pro-Palestinian activists. That's disappointing, and cuts him out of my consideration. And if Mehdi Hasan likes Walz, that's a point in his favor.

I got up this morning, and got right on the phone to my bank, in an effort to clear whateever tech glitch was preventing the Canadian government verifying my identity by checking with my Canadian bank account. And exactly what I feared would happen happened. On Friday, the nice tech people at Government of Canada told me the problem was on the bank side; today, the nice tech people at the bank told me it was the government. I'll take another whack at it tomorrow.

I've gotten at least a start on checking other music acts that I could watch and listen to, other than Stray Kids. One that takes place on that stage immediately prior to SKZ is a singer named Laufey, singing her songs, backed by the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra. I'd never heard of her, but listened to a couple of her songs, and read a bit about her (an Icelandic artist of Icelandic-Chinese background, who sings, plays cello, and occasionally has her twin sister play violin with her.) She sounds very interesting. I'll have to look at some more acts tomorrow...

...but not before I complete my police shooting range story. I finally transcribed my notes from the interview; that's become more and more important, as my written notes deteriorate.

I baked an orange cake; I'm relatively pleased with the outcome.

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

A Few Things Make a Post

I still haven't rewatched the Doctor Who finale episodes. I've had a few other things to do. Mind you, I didn't get those things done, either. Ah, well.

I did re-blue my hair. I need to have all the confidence-boosting things possible in hand so that I can hit Lollapalooza on Friday without completely losing my nerve.

I talked to my son yesterday, to ask him for some Lolla survival hints. The first thing he said was that I shouldn't go at all, and that he had stopped going to music festivals 14 years ago because he couldn't take the crowds, etc., and he thought that if he couldn't do it, I certainly couldn't. I pointed out that I'd already paid for the ticket (which is actually a bracelet that I will activate the day before.) He said something like "I know. I can't stop you. I'm not your mother." Bless him - a real bless him, not the southern type of bless. We mostly agreed on things: light colored clothing, hat, sunblock, staying well hydrated and fed, not being surprised by the cost of those things (I learned this morning that they won't make people pay for water, which is good.) We parted ways on his directive not to try to get as close to the stage as possible. At some point during that discussion, he said, sounding like I undoubtedly sounded to him 25 years ago, "If you're not going to take my advice, then there's no further reason to talk."

I probably deserved that.

I have to get to work on a story-for-money tomorrow. I'd like to get it done by noon. Ha. And again ... ha.

I've been rereading "Nona the Ninth" and dear lord, it's good. Weird and sad and funny and beautiful and horrible as fuck.Tamsyn Muir is brilliant.

Oh, I meant to say that I have seen hummingbirds, or perhaps just one hummingbird, twice in the past week. I have never in my life seen hummingbirds before, outside of pictures or film. They are a true and beautiful wonder.

I'm so tired. I have to go to bed now.

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: heading to bed
Current Music: ambient music

Politics, Who, Stray Kids

( Politics )

( Dr. Who )

I'll end with Stray Kids: I'm nine days out from watching them at Lollapalooza. I'm nervous, and excited. ATE, the EP they just dropped, is really impressive, especially the first two songs. I'll link to the EP, but I have to include their "Chk Chk Boom" music video here, because it's not just a fantastic music video in and of itself, but because it shows what happens, when two MCU actors happen to be big fans - REALLY big fans - of a K-Pop idol group. It's funny as hell.

Watch on YouTube

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

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kaffy_r

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Grasping at Grace (and Growth)

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