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Aryana (20.1% completed)
Dec. 6th, 2025 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scaramoucheI'm 38 episodes into 189 for Aryana and I'm so mad because the channel I had been watching the show on has been deleted! Not all is lost, because another official youtube channel uploaded the whole series a month ago (it's the same one that had the whole Raya Sirena series), BUT the old channel had (1) stats and comments accumulated over NINE years, so I could see which episodes were popular and read the comments that came with them, and (2) two-sentence episode summaries in English under the video, which had been SO helpful in letting me follow the show without having to audio translate everything, plus they were written well - succinct and not spoilery for any big twists in the episode.
It's just my luck that the rights transferred or whatever happened that the old channel was deleted while I was still making my way through the show. >:(
Storywise Aryana has hit her fourteenth birthday and we have finally reached the first full mermaid transformation. All the relatively mundane soap opera drama is presumably gonna take a bit of a hit as we now deal with Aryana and her family's freaking out, and I actually like that because the mundane stuff was annoying me. I'd last posted that I enjoyed Aryana's dynamic in her fancy school, but then the show upped Megan's bullying of her that even Bebet fell for Megan's propaganda and temporarily ditched Aryana, so we got multiple episodes of Aryana crying and being ostracized.
The third love interest boy still hasn't shown up yet either! I've been wishing he would because the Hubert vs. Marlon stuff has been agonizing, but in a soap opera way that I can't hate on. Hubert has confessed his feelings and got a positive response from Aryana, but that fell apart because Marlon knows that Hubert has another agenda about Aryana. Marlon is being very annoying about it, but he's not wrong! Hubert is suspicious! Is this why they added a third boy? I will be curious to see how that goes.
It's just my luck that the rights transferred or whatever happened that the old channel was deleted while I was still making my way through the show. >:(
Storywise Aryana has hit her fourteenth birthday and we have finally reached the first full mermaid transformation. All the relatively mundane soap opera drama is presumably gonna take a bit of a hit as we now deal with Aryana and her family's freaking out, and I actually like that because the mundane stuff was annoying me. I'd last posted that I enjoyed Aryana's dynamic in her fancy school, but then the show upped Megan's bullying of her that even Bebet fell for Megan's propaganda and temporarily ditched Aryana, so we got multiple episodes of Aryana crying and being ostracized.
The third love interest boy still hasn't shown up yet either! I've been wishing he would because the Hubert vs. Marlon stuff has been agonizing, but in a soap opera way that I can't hate on. Hubert has confessed his feelings and got a positive response from Aryana, but that fell apart because Marlon knows that Hubert has another agenda about Aryana. Marlon is being very annoying about it, but he's not wrong! Hubert is suspicious! Is this why they added a third boy? I will be curious to see how that goes.
Climate Change
Dec. 6th, 2025 01:23 amysabetwordsmithA hidden Antarctic shift unleashed the carbon that warmed the world
Ancient Antarctic water-mass upheavals unleashed stored carbon—and may hint at our climate future.
As the last Ice Age waned and the Holocene dawned, deep-ocean circulation around Antarctica underwent dramatic shifts that helped release long-stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Deep-sea sediments show that ancient Antarctic waters once trapped vast amounts of carbon, only to release it during two major warming pulses at the end of the Ice Age. Understanding these shifts helps scientists predict how modern Antarctic melt may accelerate future climate change.
Ancient Antarctic water-mass upheavals unleashed stored carbon—and may hint at our climate future.
As the last Ice Age waned and the Holocene dawned, deep-ocean circulation around Antarctica underwent dramatic shifts that helped release long-stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Deep-sea sediments show that ancient Antarctic waters once trapped vast amounts of carbon, only to release it during two major warming pulses at the end of the Ice Age. Understanding these shifts helps scientists predict how modern Antarctic melt may accelerate future climate change.
Philosophical Questions: Trends
Dec. 6th, 2025 01:02 amysabetwordsmithPeople have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.
Is the cultural trend of individualism and the rejection of collectivism a beneficial or detrimental trend?
( Read more... )
Is the cultural trend of individualism and the rejection of collectivism a beneficial or detrimental trend?
( Read more... )
Today's Cooking
Dec. 5th, 2025 10:40 pmysabetwordsmithToday I'm trying out a new recipe for Banana Banana Bread that I found in All Recipes. This one uses 5 bananas where my usual one takes 3, and butter instead of oil. I made half the flour whole wheat. Partway through I realized there was no other flavoring besides the bananas, so I added a teaspoon of cinnamon. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. :D
EDIT 12/5/25 -- This turned out pretty well. It's a bit prone to falling apart, but may set up more as it cools. It has quite a strong banana flavor. I don't think I'll replace my usual recipe, but this certainly works for using up a lot of bananas.
EDIT 12/5/25 -- This turned out pretty well. It's a bit prone to falling apart, but may set up more as it cools. It has quite a strong banana flavor. I don't think I'll replace my usual recipe, but this certainly works for using up a lot of bananas.
Activism
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:20 pmysabetwordsmithEquality matters
When we say that we want equality, what do we mean? Same pay for everyone? Same caloric intake? Same size of house? Same amount of electricity consumed every day? Same amount of household waste? Same amount of political power, influence, or fame?
( Read more... )
When we say that we want equality, what do we mean? Same pay for everyone? Same caloric intake? Same size of house? Same amount of electricity consumed every day? Same amount of household waste? Same amount of political power, influence, or fame?
( Read more... )
Economics
Dec. 5th, 2025 07:59 pmysabetwordsmithA Founder Got Fed Up With Potential Hires Using AI to ‘Fake It.’
Mollion says some job candidates have always misrepresented themselves, but AI has made the gap between presentation and reality even wider—making interviews and written materials even less reliable.
“On top of that, traditional interviews simply don’t reveal real skill, work style, responsiveness, or judgment,” Mollion told me. “People can say all the right things in an interview, but none of that guarantees how they actually perform on the job.”
I've been saying for years that brief resumes, college degrees, and office interviews offer very little indication of an applicant's actual ability to do a job.
( Read more... )
Mollion says some job candidates have always misrepresented themselves, but AI has made the gap between presentation and reality even wider—making interviews and written materials even less reliable.
“On top of that, traditional interviews simply don’t reveal real skill, work style, responsiveness, or judgment,” Mollion told me. “People can say all the right things in an interview, but none of that guarantees how they actually perform on the job.”
I've been saying for years that brief resumes, college degrees, and office interviews offer very little indication of an applicant's actual ability to do a job.
( Read more... )
Georgia Day 3: Jvari Monastery and St Nino
Dec. 6th, 2025 11:08 amtielanI'll get through Georgia by Christmas, I'm sure!
Trying to remember how it all felt nearly two months later isn't easy. I'm going off the photos I took, the impression of memories. All a bit blurred by 'ordinary time'.
The bus trip from Signahi to the Mshketa region was a couple of hours long and we had one of those giant 'caterpillar' buses. Everyone had their own double seat and by the time we took the long trips it was fairly settled who was where. Some women wanted to be able to ride in the front and see where we were going, while others wanted this side or that side.
I had a woman from Alaska in front of me - there were three of them on the tour, and this one was probably the youngest of the three. She wasn't chatty, but we had a few great conversations about politics and society over the course of the next few days.
The (closed up and not used) toilet was behind me, and woman from California across from me, a woman from New York behind her, and another California woman in front of her - the photographer of the trip.
It was a pretty easygoing group of women, as I've said before. We were almost universally older, perhaps a little more jaded in our outlook than the women I met on the Naples tour, and more cosmopolite than the women of the Pride and Prejudice tour.
Out in the villages and towns, away from the cities, the country felt very different to the tourist spots. I don't know if this is typical in countries and areas where primary GDP is from tourism, or if it's just former USSR states.
We drove past spaces that felt very run-down, a lot of places and spaces were overgrown. Houses were abandoned, no glass in their windows. Gates and pergola frames were rusted and overgrown with...well, mostly grapevines, although occasionally there were other flowering vines. And the people working the spaces were all old. Almost all of them were forty and over. I didn't see any really young people until we got to the cities: Kutaisi, Tbilisi.
When we went to the markets, there was a lot of 'selling the same things'. Like, a dozen stalls are all selling the exact same thing, no difference. I feel like this happens less, even in the markets in Australia, like Melbourne's Queen Victoria Markets. Maybe in the tourist shops with the trinkets and whatnot - those are all the same, but I don't go into those. But I had the same feeling in Vietnam and in Naples and even a little in Porto. There's not enough differentiation of product, just everyone selling more or less the same thing. And, somewhat cynically, I suspect most of them come from China...
In the morning, the bus took us towards Mshketa, which is in fact quite close to Tbilisi, where the tour had been on the weekend (while I recovered from COVID). The city is built at a kind of three-way intersection of various legs of the river, and overlooking it is the Jvari Monastery which was built in the 6th Century by the last vestiges of the Roman Empire.
In the 4th Century, the patron saint of Georgia, St Nino, brought Christianity to Georgia, converting the king at the time, and setting up Christianity as the main religion. Cue the churches, temples, and monasteries. Also, as later seen in the Uplistsikhe rock village, the conversion of old "pagan" temples into Christian worship spaces.
Anyway, the Jvari monastery dates back to the 6th Century and is magnificently still standing, all the stones firmly in place:
In comparison, the wall in the last photo - half-torn down, with only segments of it remaining - was built in the 17th Century. But why have the monastery and chapel survived a thousand years while the wall lies in ruins?
The 6th Century structures were built to Roman Standards. The worksmanship was precise and careful and everything was designed and put together just so. The wall? Was pretty much slapped together with some mortar and various stones. It's entirely possible to make really solid walls out of stones, it's just that the 17th Century builders (I think they were Templars, for some reason? Maybe? Don't quote me!) didn't bother with all that.
I would have liked to explore more inside the monastery, but I don't think there was much public access. It's not used as a monastery any more, obviously, but it still looked very solid. Anyway, we moved on after only about 30 minutes. It was a very brief stop, but interesting. I love histories and architectures, the movement of people across continents and lands... well, you know me!
On the way to Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, our guide talked a lot about St Nino, where she came from and what she did. I tried to pay attention, but got lost a few times because her accent was fairly thick.
The Cathedral was really interesting, architecturally. The present version was built in the 11th Century, and the story I was told was that the architect got into trouble for not making the inside symmetrical. Outside, though, it's very imposing and the sky was suitably dramatic for it!
The church's significance is primarily attributable to the legend of the buried mantle of Christ, brought to the region in the 1st Century by a Georgian Jew. It's also allegedly a site of great miracles, and is a major pilgrimage site for the Georgian Orthodox Church. There were a lot of priests and members of religious orders there, as well as a number of pilgrims. They were decidedly distinct from the tourists.
Some beautiful stonework there, and beautiful historical murals.
One of the notable things about the church is that when the Soviets came in, they tried to eliminate all religion. So they plastered and whitewashed over a lot of the murals, which dated back hundreds of years and had some beautiful iconography and design. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just peeling the plaster off; they've been able to get some of it off, but they had to stop because they were damaging what was underneath.
There was a small market through which we had to pass on our way up to the Cathedral from the carpark. A restaurant had a fig tree in full fruit and while I was tempted to pick and eat, I thought it might not be polite, so I passed. But I did buy a pair of very beautiful cloisonne earrings at the markets there!
Lunch (somewhat late) was at Ateni Vineyards. The property had been in the family for generations, and Nino had pictures of her grandfather and grandmother down in the cellar under the house, where wine had been produced for generations. Unfortunately, her paternal line were perpetrators of domestic violence, and she herself had escaped a domestic violence situation before deciding to return to the family property and renovate it from the ruin it had been.
The women she employed to assist in making the lunch are displaced women from Ossetia. My notes only have 'Ossetia' but some research shows that that Ossetia is considered an ethnolinguistic region (common ancestry and culture, and common language, I believe) and there's 'North Ossetia' and 'South Ossetia' which are more or less divided up by the Caucasus mountains. North Ossetia is under Russian control, or counted part of Russia, while South Ossetia lies within the current borders of Georgia. And takes quite a bite out of the middle of it.
For whatever reason or another, however, these women were 'internally displaced people', and they were working for Nino and assisting in cooking the feast that we ate:
- purslane and ajika brusquets
- cheese and georgian endemic wheat bread
- cucumber tomato salad with walnuts
- cornelian cherry soup
- black-eyed peas
- spinach and beet leaves pie
- squash
- cherry tarts
The cherry tarts were absolutely amazing. But, again, so much food and we simply couldn't do it justice!
We were each given a candle like the one below, and I ended up gifting this toalphaflyer's daughter in Canada, because I'm seriously not a candle person at all.
Nino's philosophy was very 'new agey' to me, not my style. She tended to rhapsodise about 'feminine power' and the uniqueness of women, which...yes, I am for women being people and respected, but not so much for gender essentialism.
The slightly blurry photo is of the winemaking cellar in the house - the sort of thing that every household once had: a buried qvervy (Georgian wine-making vessel) into which the juice from the grape pressings would go. Apparently she'd made a very traditional-style vintage a few years back, including the foot pressing - although we weren't served it! Also, those things are hellish to clean to modern standards...
Some of the women like the wine and the winemaker so much, they bought boxes of wine and got them shipped back to their homes in the USA!
It was a really long afternoon in the end, and by the time we left, we were more than ready to head to our stay at a retreat up in the mountains...with a 10 minute walk to get there!
Leaving Sighnahi
Trying to remember how it all felt nearly two months later isn't easy. I'm going off the photos I took, the impression of memories. All a bit blurred by 'ordinary time'.
The bus trip from Signahi to the Mshketa region was a couple of hours long and we had one of those giant 'caterpillar' buses. Everyone had their own double seat and by the time we took the long trips it was fairly settled who was where. Some women wanted to be able to ride in the front and see where we were going, while others wanted this side or that side.
I had a woman from Alaska in front of me - there were three of them on the tour, and this one was probably the youngest of the three. She wasn't chatty, but we had a few great conversations about politics and society over the course of the next few days.
The (closed up and not used) toilet was behind me, and woman from California across from me, a woman from New York behind her, and another California woman in front of her - the photographer of the trip.
It was a pretty easygoing group of women, as I've said before. We were almost universally older, perhaps a little more jaded in our outlook than the women I met on the Naples tour, and more cosmopolite than the women of the Pride and Prejudice tour.
Out in the villages and towns, away from the cities, the country felt very different to the tourist spots. I don't know if this is typical in countries and areas where primary GDP is from tourism, or if it's just former USSR states.
We drove past spaces that felt very run-down, a lot of places and spaces were overgrown. Houses were abandoned, no glass in their windows. Gates and pergola frames were rusted and overgrown with...well, mostly grapevines, although occasionally there were other flowering vines. And the people working the spaces were all old. Almost all of them were forty and over. I didn't see any really young people until we got to the cities: Kutaisi, Tbilisi.
When we went to the markets, there was a lot of 'selling the same things'. Like, a dozen stalls are all selling the exact same thing, no difference. I feel like this happens less, even in the markets in Australia, like Melbourne's Queen Victoria Markets. Maybe in the tourist shops with the trinkets and whatnot - those are all the same, but I don't go into those. But I had the same feeling in Vietnam and in Naples and even a little in Porto. There's not enough differentiation of product, just everyone selling more or less the same thing. And, somewhat cynically, I suspect most of them come from China...
Mshketa and the history of Christianity in Georgia
In the morning, the bus took us towards Mshketa, which is in fact quite close to Tbilisi, where the tour had been on the weekend (while I recovered from COVID). The city is built at a kind of three-way intersection of various legs of the river, and overlooking it is the Jvari Monastery which was built in the 6th Century by the last vestiges of the Roman Empire.
In the 4th Century, the patron saint of Georgia, St Nino, brought Christianity to Georgia, converting the king at the time, and setting up Christianity as the main religion. Cue the churches, temples, and monasteries. Also, as later seen in the Uplistsikhe rock village, the conversion of old "pagan" temples into Christian worship spaces.
Anyway, the Jvari monastery dates back to the 6th Century and is magnificently still standing, all the stones firmly in place:
In comparison, the wall in the last photo - half-torn down, with only segments of it remaining - was built in the 17th Century. But why have the monastery and chapel survived a thousand years while the wall lies in ruins?
The 6th Century structures were built to Roman Standards. The worksmanship was precise and careful and everything was designed and put together just so. The wall? Was pretty much slapped together with some mortar and various stones. It's entirely possible to make really solid walls out of stones, it's just that the 17th Century builders (I think they were Templars, for some reason? Maybe? Don't quote me!) didn't bother with all that.
I would have liked to explore more inside the monastery, but I don't think there was much public access. It's not used as a monastery any more, obviously, but it still looked very solid. Anyway, we moved on after only about 30 minutes. It was a very brief stop, but interesting. I love histories and architectures, the movement of people across continents and lands... well, you know me!
On the way to Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, our guide talked a lot about St Nino, where she came from and what she did. I tried to pay attention, but got lost a few times because her accent was fairly thick.
Svetitskhoveli Cathedral
The Cathedral was really interesting, architecturally. The present version was built in the 11th Century, and the story I was told was that the architect got into trouble for not making the inside symmetrical. Outside, though, it's very imposing and the sky was suitably dramatic for it!
The church's significance is primarily attributable to the legend of the buried mantle of Christ, brought to the region in the 1st Century by a Georgian Jew. It's also allegedly a site of great miracles, and is a major pilgrimage site for the Georgian Orthodox Church. There were a lot of priests and members of religious orders there, as well as a number of pilgrims. They were decidedly distinct from the tourists.
Some beautiful stonework there, and beautiful historical murals.
One of the notable things about the church is that when the Soviets came in, they tried to eliminate all religion. So they plastered and whitewashed over a lot of the murals, which dated back hundreds of years and had some beautiful iconography and design. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just peeling the plaster off; they've been able to get some of it off, but they had to stop because they were damaging what was underneath.
There was a small market through which we had to pass on our way up to the Cathedral from the carpark. A restaurant had a fig tree in full fruit and while I was tempted to pick and eat, I thought it might not be polite, so I passed. But I did buy a pair of very beautiful cloisonne earrings at the markets there!
Lunch, wineries, winemaking
Lunch (somewhat late) was at Ateni Vineyards. The property had been in the family for generations, and Nino had pictures of her grandfather and grandmother down in the cellar under the house, where wine had been produced for generations. Unfortunately, her paternal line were perpetrators of domestic violence, and she herself had escaped a domestic violence situation before deciding to return to the family property and renovate it from the ruin it had been.
The women she employed to assist in making the lunch are displaced women from Ossetia. My notes only have 'Ossetia' but some research shows that that Ossetia is considered an ethnolinguistic region (common ancestry and culture, and common language, I believe) and there's 'North Ossetia' and 'South Ossetia' which are more or less divided up by the Caucasus mountains. North Ossetia is under Russian control, or counted part of Russia, while South Ossetia lies within the current borders of Georgia. And takes quite a bite out of the middle of it.
For whatever reason or another, however, these women were 'internally displaced people', and they were working for Nino and assisting in cooking the feast that we ate:
- purslane and ajika brusquets
- cheese and georgian endemic wheat bread
- cucumber tomato salad with walnuts
- cornelian cherry soup
- black-eyed peas
- spinach and beet leaves pie
- squash
- cherry tarts
The cherry tarts were absolutely amazing. But, again, so much food and we simply couldn't do it justice!
We were each given a candle like the one below, and I ended up gifting this to
alphaflyer's daughter in Canada, because I'm seriously not a candle person at all.Nino's philosophy was very 'new agey' to me, not my style. She tended to rhapsodise about 'feminine power' and the uniqueness of women, which...yes, I am for women being people and respected, but not so much for gender essentialism.
The slightly blurry photo is of the winemaking cellar in the house - the sort of thing that every household once had: a buried qvervy (Georgian wine-making vessel) into which the juice from the grape pressings would go. Apparently she'd made a very traditional-style vintage a few years back, including the foot pressing - although we weren't served it! Also, those things are hellish to clean to modern standards...
Some of the women like the wine and the winemaker so much, they bought boxes of wine and got them shipped back to their homes in the USA!
It was a really long afternoon in the end, and by the time we left, we were more than ready to head to our stay at a retreat up in the mountains...with a 10 minute walk to get there!
ugh breathing things
Dec. 6th, 2025 07:39 amtielanThere is definitely something in my study that makes my throat sore.
There's been various molding spots on the wall for several years now, but I'm really noticing the issue lately. It's going to be a hot dry summer, so maybe this is the time to tackle it?
There's been various molding spots on the wall for several years now, but I'm really noticing the issue lately. It's going to be a hot dry summer, so maybe this is the time to tackle it?
Birdfeeding
Dec. 5th, 2025 02:09 pmysabetwordsmithToday is cloudy and cold.
I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus two mourning doves.
I put out water for the birds.
I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus two mourning doves.
I put out water for the birds.
Tried a perfume oil at Ritual and it was a Mistake.
Dec. 5th, 2025 03:54 pmgoodbyebird+ I'm stuck waiting in the car at the mall, and I am SO HEAVILY SCENTED ugh. It was barely a dab! Rituals has made an enemy of me this day.
Plus side I've picked up a couple of Christmas presents, plus a half off face cream for myself.
If I hang my clothes up to dry when I get home and start the bedding, then empty the dishwasher? Not a whole day wasted, look at me go.
❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 5
Xena for Fanart Friday =)
"Gabrielle, do it." by gabbiemara @ reddit. Delectable vampire piece.
badass feminist icons by![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
artbykristele. Fun portrait of Xena and Gabi in a fighting pose.
Good pals byrennerei. Legs around waist! Smooches! Aiaiaiaiaiii
Stay Down by laurenknight @ bsky. Xena being in charge, and Callisto is more than happy about it. So fun!
Plus side I've picked up a couple of Christmas presents, plus a half off face cream for myself.
If I hang my clothes up to dry when I get home and start the bedding, then empty the dishwasher? Not a whole day wasted, look at me go.
Rec-cember Day 5
Xena for Fanart Friday =)
"Gabrielle, do it." by gabbiemara @ reddit. Delectable vampire piece.
badass feminist icons by
artbykristele. Fun portrait of Xena and Gabi in a fighting pose. Good pals by
rennerei. Legs around waist! Smooches! AiaiaiaiaiiiStay Down by laurenknight @ bsky. Xena being in charge, and Callisto is more than happy about it. So fun!
Photos: House Yard
Dec. 4th, 2025 11:39 pmysabetwordsmithToday I took pictures of icicles and snow, mostly in the house yard, some down the driveway.
( Walk with me ... )
( Walk with me ... )
crazy hot days
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:40 amtielan39C today, 40C tomorrow.
A slightly cooler next week, but pretty warm (high 20s, early 30s) through to Jan.
Next week is supposed to be some rainfall here and there. We can hope. It will make things awfully sticky, but sticky I can manage.
The bit I'm nervous about is a handful of seedlings I planted out a few days ago - melons and pumpkins. Don't know if they're going to survive it - I've watered them morning, noon, and evening, covered them with shadecloth, but none of that is a guarantee when the temps hit 40C.
Oy.
My sister is worried about the chickens, who aren't coping real well with the heat - they never do, but it's particularly difficult in these super-hot days, and when there's not a lot of spaces where they can stay cool. I might have to let them back into the triangle garden, so they can take shelter in the thickets of the trees there.
I'm kind of wondering if I can set up a specific space for them during the middle of the day. They won't get to move around so much, and they might be at risk of dogs going by (although the owners around here are good and keep them on leashes...most of the time, except when Bev's dogs get out) but...it'll be cooler?
Anyway, I gotta go out and check that the chooks aren't overheating.
A slightly cooler next week, but pretty warm (high 20s, early 30s) through to Jan.
Next week is supposed to be some rainfall here and there. We can hope. It will make things awfully sticky, but sticky I can manage.
The bit I'm nervous about is a handful of seedlings I planted out a few days ago - melons and pumpkins. Don't know if they're going to survive it - I've watered them morning, noon, and evening, covered them with shadecloth, but none of that is a guarantee when the temps hit 40C.
Oy.
My sister is worried about the chickens, who aren't coping real well with the heat - they never do, but it's particularly difficult in these super-hot days, and when there's not a lot of spaces where they can stay cool. I might have to let them back into the triangle garden, so they can take shelter in the thickets of the trees there.
I'm kind of wondering if I can set up a specific space for them during the middle of the day. They won't get to move around so much, and they might be at risk of dogs going by (although the owners around here are good and keep them on leashes...most of the time, except when Bev's dogs get out) but...it'll be cooler?
Anyway, I gotta go out and check that the chooks aren't overheating.
Activism
Dec. 4th, 2025 05:49 pmysabetwordsmithFour countries announce Eurovision 2026 boycott after Israel allowed to compete
Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain have all said they won't be taking part in next year's contest.
You can play along at home by skipping Eurovision 2026 to purchase songs from countries who have taken a stand against genocide -- or buy Palestinian music.
Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain have all said they won't be taking part in next year's contest.
You can play along at home by skipping Eurovision 2026 to purchase songs from countries who have taken a stand against genocide -- or buy Palestinian music.
(no subject)
Dec. 4th, 2025 04:23 pmlotesseReading Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's The Wizard of the Crow; absolutely wild parallels to current events here, on the daily. Despotism as the ultimate theater of the absurd: all of these petty men running around to shiv each other and cover their own asses, twisting language and logic and meaning up in absolute knots because what are words but a means to power?
Art
Dec. 4th, 2025 03:25 pmysabetwordsmithA new book of Edward Gorey’s drawings shows what’s lost when the artist’s sexuality is glossed over
As for his personal life, Gorey may have been what today we’d call asexual; Gorey himself used the term “undersexed,” but he also acknowledged, when asked directly about his sexuality, that he “supposed” he was gay.
Mark Dery’s 2018 Gorey biography, “Born to be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey,” documents the artist’s participation in postwar gay life. The book details a handful of crushes Gorey had on various men, at least one of which – a brief affair with a man named Victor – involved some physical intimacy.
To whatever extent Gorey entertained sex or romance, it was with men. As Dery points out, however, this fact largely goes unaddressed in discussions of the artist’s work.
As for his personal life, Gorey may have been what today we’d call asexual; Gorey himself used the term “undersexed,” but he also acknowledged, when asked directly about his sexuality, that he “supposed” he was gay.
Mark Dery’s 2018 Gorey biography, “Born to be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey,” documents the artist’s participation in postwar gay life. The book details a handful of crushes Gorey had on various men, at least one of which – a brief affair with a man named Victor – involved some physical intimacy.
To whatever extent Gorey entertained sex or romance, it was with men. As Dery points out, however, this fact largely goes unaddressed in discussions of the artist’s work.
Birdfeeding
Dec. 4th, 2025 02:19 pmysabetwordsmithToday is sunny and cold. Icicles are forming along the eaves.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a male cardinal, and a mourning dove.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I took some pictures around the yard.
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I've seen several more mourning doves roosting in the trees, puffed up like little beige softballs. :D
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a male cardinal, and a mourning dove.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I took some pictures around the yard.
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I've seen several more mourning doves roosting in the trees, puffed up like little beige softballs. :D
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/3/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.