(no subject)

Apr. 19th, 2026 05:53 am

Chena

Apr. 18th, 2026 09:27 pm
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
Yesterday Chena went from her usual interactive, happy self to the picture of an unwell dog. She was wobbly on her feet, flinched away from people and really, really didn't want to be touched. She lay down in the living room around 9am and hardly moved until 4pm.  Not interested in food or drink.  I almost took her to the emergency vet last night, but it looked like she was beginning to be a little more alert, so waited. At 3am she consented to lapping a little water. At 7 am she zoomed out the front door and began barking noisily at Mr Raven who was sitting on the power pole.  Happily ate breakfast and slurped up water.  Charged up Fairview Hill running happily next to the car. She happily rooted around in the leaf litter where the fallen limbs had been, using her nose like a pig. She was following the scent of a vole.  My only guess is that somehow she got into some marijuana and spent the day yesterday extremely stoned. 1 gummy would have done it, but WHERE would she get such a thing?  Whatever the case I'm glad she has gotten back to normal.

Busy

Apr. 18th, 2026 08:51 pm
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
This morning I met Dave and Ray at Friedman's.  We bought lumber, screws, and rebar so I can build a bridge.  We hauled the stuff up to the house, cut the lumber into 5' pieces and then hauled it out to Duck Lake. The three of us then switched gears and cleared the fallen tree off the old road above Duck Lake. Lots of twiggy stuff, but unnerving because three trees were involved.  The biggest tree had fallen hitting and breaking two smaller trees.  All of the bases were hung up (read the trees had snapped partway up and had not fallen all the way down. Instead the heavy trunk of the tree was suspended in the air.  When the lower branches are cut back it changes the way the trunk is supported and can cause one or more of the trunks to roll and fall.  This was on a steep sideslope, so I kept a sharp eye on everything as I cut, I really didn't want anything rolling down on top of me. 
Our third task was to clear two massive limbs at Deer Camp. The two were hung up, and leaning on each other.  There was probably 1,000 # waiting to fall on us.  Fortunately those two limbs were pretty stable and on flatter ground.  Once we cleared all the twiggy "brush"  and cut back any branch that was not supporting weight we considered the problem. Geez, hundreds of pounds 10 feet in the air....  We put a tow strap on the smaller limb and pulled it sideways a little. It obligingly fell down with a thump, leaving the larger limb hanging by nothing much.  I tried a cut to see if it would roll down, but no luck. So we put the tow strap on it and pulled it the opposite direction of the first limb. It fell with almost no real pressure on the strap.  Whew!  Very scary work.  Lots of thought about how to keep fragile human bodies safe.  With the limbs down Dave and Ray left as they had late afternoon appointments. 
I returned to the house and feverishly sorted out ribbons.  We mark the trail by tying surveyors tape; bright orange or bright pink; to clothespins.  The clothespins can then be clipped to branches, fences, wands or pretty much anything else.  To keep the ribbons and clothespins tidy and easy to access the pins are clipped to a circle of rope that can be worn over one shoulder.  Here is Carrie and Juno last year. 


The flags with the blue in them are to mark turns or other places where the trail might be confusing.  They mean: STOP, find your next flag before you go any further.  It will be in sight!  Helps keep people from getting lost.  I am desperately trying to make more flags.  Somehow an entire, large box of flags, neatly clipped to ropes, has disappeared. Probably at least 200 flags just gone.  Hopefully now that I am replacing them the old flags will re-appear. 
Tomorrow is a bridge building day with Glenn.

(no subject)

Apr. 18th, 2026 08:59 pm
dustbunny105: (Default)
[personal profile] dustbunny105
Ended up spending a lot more of the day than expected with my sister and the kids. We didn't even go to the library! Turned out the kids weren't ready to give up the books they'd checked out, lol. Instead, we had lunch, made sock puppets, went to the store and then had dinner. Unexpected and kiiinda inconvenient but still fun.

COOOOON!

Apr. 18th, 2026 11:07 pm
cornerofmadness: (squee)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
First off let me say Happy birthday to [personal profile] lordgloria and happy belated birthday to [personal profile] evil_little_dog

Today is the first of 4 cons in a row. This is a small con mostly run by friends of mine. I went in the afternoon because I wanted to put in for the raffle. Unfortunately they've not had a lot of luck getting panels off the ground so it's mostly a vendor room inside the community gym. Still, it's always a nice time.

I didn't get out of there without promising to help next year. I can do that but not all day and that was fine. There were some repeat vendors that I knew and others I hadn't met before. I met a young author who was very enthusiastic about his book and since it was a mystery/fantasy inspired by his trans masc friend (who was the sensitivity reader) and I bought it. Later in the day my friend MKF mentioned a mutual friend (who I hadn't seen in a long while) was 'over there' talking to his son in law. turns out it was this young author.

I got a few other things, mostly little things for friends and some more hazbin art from an artist I bought from before, mostly because she gave me mochi because I was having a hypoglycemic episode which made NO sense because I had pancit (noodles) for lunch and had forgotten my insulin. Luckily right next to them was my friend PQ (from last week's post) who in addition to beer makes sarsaparilla and he gave me some so I was okay.

I did get the most adorable shaker keychain with Husk and Angel from the mochi ladies and then realized I could never USE it because it's delicate but in the shaker are tiny hearts and playing cards and it's so damn adorable.

I also got shell earrings with tiny little octopi in them. I picked up another SF book from an indie author but I was also getting too tired. I didn't make it to the end. Still I had a good time.

Let's have science Saturday


Bright-green fireball meteor caught exploding over famous Viking raid site in UK

Strange mammal ancestor laid huge, leathery eggs —‬ and it was key to surviving the world's worst mass extinction

Stephen Hawking's black hole information paradox could be solved — if the universe has 7 dimensions

Physicists entangle two moving atoms for the first time, validating 'spooky' quantum theory

Physicists just witnessed pinpricks of darkness moving faster than the speed of light ‪—‬ without breaking the laws of relativity

Scientists use bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol (On one hand, cool on the other hand it's a little strange and concerning we can rearrange plastic chemicals into medicine)

High School Student’s Low-Cost Teabag Solution For Millions Threatened By Arsenic Passes Peer Review

Just one thing: 19 April 2026

Apr. 18th, 2026 10:00 pm
[personal profile] jazzyjj posting in [community profile] awesomeers
It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

A Fairly Sad Tale by Dorothy Parker

Apr. 19th, 2026 09:19 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire.
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me—I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were—shall we say?—born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic—
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?


********


Link

(no subject)

Apr. 18th, 2026 07:56 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Poll #34495 Ideal calendar behavior
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24


When should one cross dates off the calendar?

View Answers

You cross off the current date at the start of the day
2 (8.3%)

You cross off the current date at the end of the day
15 (62.5%)

You cross off tomorrow's date at the end of the day
1 (4.2%)

You never cross anything off, ever
6 (25.0%)



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


Read more... )

What's really dismaying

Apr. 17th, 2026 07:21 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
is that none of this was made up. Truly, I hate this timeline.

⛵︎

Apr. 18th, 2026 08:08 pm
soemand: (Default)
[personal profile] soemand
A sunny 20ºC day in April only means one thing: time to get the sailboat’s bottom paint sorted out again. Every few years I end up choosing a new product because the last one has been discontinued. I keep looking at the biocide‑free paints, but their strict application rules feel like a commitment I’m not quite ready to take on.

So I went with a familiar option and got to work. Started around 9:30, wrapped up at 14:00. It’s a long stretch under the hull, but with the sun out and the boat slowly returning to a clean, uniform coat, it felt like a solid way to mark the start of the season.

Write Every Day: Day 18

Apr. 18th, 2026 04:02 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ

My check-in: Finished this revision pass of the longfic, woohoo! (She says optimistically, knowing FULL WELL she's likely to rewrite tomorrow what she rewrote today.) Woot woot!

Day 18: [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 17: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] dswdiane, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora

Day 16: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] dswdiane, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!
mellowtigger: (flameproof)
[personal profile] mellowtigger

I'm a big advocate of recognizing climate change.

For instance, back in 1960, this USDA map shows Minneapolis in zone 4a. Sometime later, we changed to 4b, and today we're in zone 5a. We're still fully surrounded by zone 4b, though, so it's only because of the "heat island effect" that we're considered a warmer zone. You can see that island of heat on this map. That's fine, I suppose.

Unwelcome, however, is receiving plant shipments on dates that are still too early for actual cold weather habits in this part of Minnesota. I planted things a few weeks ago, when they shipped much too early, then we had a hard freeze down to -7C/20F. I received more plants on Thursday, only a little too early. I kept them indoors, because I saw the forecast for below-freezing temperatures this morning. That's also fine, I suppose. After work today, I got some asparagus and roses into the ground finally. I had to dress warm, because the wind chill was 3C/37F.

Foxy Pavement rose is blooming in container before planting in MinneapolisI have a few more delivered plants to put into the ground, but I'm waiting until Monday morning's sub-freezing weather passes. One of these plants is another rose, but it's already blooming! It just seems terribly wrong to try putting it into the ground right before a freeze.

That photo isn't great, but the single open flower at the top is still visible. These last remaining plants will just have to wait for Monday afternoon. I wish all of these plants weren't delivered until late April, like what would happen years ago, when we were still in zone 4.

do it yourself, lazybones

Apr. 18th, 2026 05:31 pm
somedayseattle: scared baby (Default)
[personal profile] somedayseattle
Its too damn hot to even complain about how damn hot it is. 92 degrees?? Whatever happened to Spring? Has Trump ruined that, too?
rebeccmeister: (Default)
[personal profile] rebeccmeister
George very helpfully showed me twice where some fresh fortifications would not be sufficient to keep him contained in the catio.

The spot requiring the fresh fortifications is going to take some work, so I'm not sure I'll get that done soon (much to George's dismay, whether he knows it or not!). I wound up giving Martha a good bit of her own catio time, since she was content to hunt insects instead of puzzling over her own new ways to escape.

Today was eventful, so maybe I should summarize, with the hopes of more bandwidth to blog more later:

-Coached rowing practice; towards the beginning of practice, a rower fell in the water while helping carry a quad onto the docks. She's mostly okay, but that was not a fun way to start practice.

-Got a card and a poster sent over to our coach who is recovering from a rear-end crash. Whiplash is no joke, folks.

-Hosted a backyard Bike Valet sign-painting party. For a little while it seemed like it might be a Party of One, but that's okay if it at least means I get the task done. But then other bike folks made their way over and we had fun and were able to talk about some good and important things. I will have more to say about the bike valet plans soon, I'm sure.

But for now, I should cook up some dinner.

one if by land and two if by sea

Apr. 18th, 2026 05:05 pm
tsuki_no_bara: (Default)
[personal profile] tsuki_no_bara
guess how my day started! if you guessed "couldn't get the car door open AGAIN, figured it out, discovered the battery was dead AGAIN," gold star for you! i called the garage and left a very cranky email (they're closed on weekends which i know and let them know i know) because come the fuck on, it's been SIX GOD DAMN WEEKS. and i cannot drive my car. and this is the exact same thing that happened last weekend. and i have plans this coming monday that do not include sitting at home waiting for someone to come and jump the battery like they did this past monday. and i have plans for tonight that i have to cab to.

JESUS FUCK. i just want to be able to drive my car! and not have to worry that it's going to die on me!

*seethe*

i did however manage to make it to the coffee house with the bagel sandwiches (god bless the bus) so i finally satisfied that craving, and i got some sun in and some exercise, and i accomplished about 960 words on the thing i'm doing for writing group, which isn't great but is better than nothing. and i bought quarters and did some laundry. silver lining, silver lining.

today's poem is historically appropriate but very long so i shall cut.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear )

(no subject)

Apr. 18th, 2026 12:38 pm
greghousesgf: (pic#17098462)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
Had a great swim this morning. I think later this afternoon I'll go down to Lakeshore and see if there's anything interesting going on over there before I go to Trader Joe and get tortillas and beans and other stuff to make burritos.

Spring

Apr. 18th, 2026 02:54 pm
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera


Willows are always the first to green up.

Then, for two weeks or so before the first leaves appear on the other trees, when you drive past those trees, the trees seem... hazy: Their branches are bare, but there's a difference in hue you can only sense with your peripheral vision.

Then, boom! The twigs have sprouted tiny flowers, and boom! again, those flowers have become leaves.



The whole process takes place very fast in maples and poplars; tree flower to tender green leaf only takes about three days. Oak trees are slower. But anyway, it's spring!



I continue to be very, very lazy.

And isolated: Communication is actually a bit of a chore. Every word that comes out of my mouth, every sentence that materializes from my keyboard, feels clumsy somehow. Stilted. The prosody is off. Or something. Whatever it is, it makes me not want to talk to anybody. Or write.

And apolitical: World War III may well be incubating, but I find I do not have the energy to care.

And inert: I force myself to tromp because it's the only way to build up physical strength. But I'm not enjoying it much. That might well be because there really aren't as many pleasant tromping paths in Ulster County as there were in Dutchess County.

###

I have been reading a lot. Just finished Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which is am amazing novel, particularly when you contrast the simplicity, even banality, of its prose with its emotional impact. Ostensibly science fiction, it's the type of science fiction whose speculations are filled with small holes—But why didn't they just run away? But why didn't they just grow laboratory organs?—but which somehow paints a compelling portrait from the inside out of what it feels like to be the Other. It's the accretion of all those small, seemingly unimportant details, I suppose. Ishiguro did something very similar in his earlier The Remains of the Day, a novel whose subject matter could not be more unlike Never Let Me Go.

I cried for ten minutes after I turned the last page. Kathy H's solitiquy about plastic bags stuck on a fence, flapping in the wind! Of course, I am primed to cry these days.

And now I need something else to read!
gilda_elise: (Books - World at Feet)
[personal profile] gilda_elise
The Great Contradiction


A major new history from the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, on how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. In this daring and important work, our most trusted voice on the founding era reckons with the realities and regrets of our founding and the tragedy of its two great the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid Indian removal.

“How does it appear in the sight-of-heaven,” wrote Samuel Hopkins of Newport, “that these States, who have been fighting for liberty, cannot agree in any political constitution unless it indulge and authorize them to enslave their fellow men.”

On the eve of the American Revolution, half a million enslaved African Americans, many in place for several generations, were permanently embedded in the North American population. The slave trade was flourishing, even as the thirteen colonies armed themselves to defend against the idea of being governed without consent. This paradox gave birth to what one of our most trusted and admired historians, Joseph J. Ellis, calls the “American Dilemma.” How could a government that had been fought for and founded on the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence institutionalize slavery? How could it permit a tidal wave of western migration by settlers who understood the phrase “pursuit of happiness” to mean claiming Indian land?

In The Great Contradiction, Ellis, with narrative grace and a flair for irony and paradox, addresses the questions that lie at America’s twisted roots—questions that turned even the sharpest minds of the revolutionary generation into mental contortionists. He discusses the first debates around slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, from the Constitutional Convention to the Treaty of New York, revealing the thinking and rationalizations behind Jay, Hamilton, and Madison’s revisions of the Articles of Confederation, and highlights the key role of figures like Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet and Creek chief Alexander McGillivray.

Ellis writes with candor and deftness, his clarion voice rising above presentist historians and partisans, who are eager to make the founders into trophies in the ongoing culture wars. Instead, Ellis tells a story that is rooted in the coexistence of grandeur and failure, brilliance and blindness, grace and sin.


For such a short book, it delves into two of the most intriguing questions of the Revolution: why was slavery permitted to continue, and why the indigenous population’s removal allowed. They would be the two greatest failures of the revolutionary generation.

Though more of the book focuses on the subject of slavery, both issues are given thorough examination, being the “great contradiction” of the American founding and early history. The founders would declare that all men are created equal, while preserving slavery. They would declare their freedom from a tyranny that they would then use to allow the genocide of the indigenous population.

One can argue that the Union could never have been created if the southern colonies had not been allowed to keep their slaves. That the new government didn’t have the martial strength to hold back the tide of rapacious settlers as they swarmed over native land. Both are true. But not only would nothing be done about the issues, but laws would be passed that would make both issues worse.

The main characters on both sides of each issue are examined. Their motives would be concisely analyzed to the best of the author’s knowledge. It would seem that the contradiction was both political and personal.

The book is a truly compelling read.


Mount TBR

Mount TBR 2026 Book Links


Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
3. The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
4. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon/a>
5.
Moon Flower by James P. Hogan
6. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace by H.W. Brands
7. Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons
8. Clytemnestra's Bind (House of Atreus 1) by Susan C Wilson
9. Glory and the Lightning. by Taylor Caldwell
10. Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery by Mark Synnott
11. Regeneration (Regeneration 1) by Pat Barker
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
13. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher
14. Thinner by Richard Bachman
15. The Voyage Home (Women of Troy #3) by Pat Barker
16. The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror by Elizabeth McGregor
17. Helen's Judgement (House of Atreus 2) by Susan C. Wilson
18. The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis


Goodreads 18

Waiting for the mom

Apr. 18th, 2026 05:09 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

My parents want to talk to me today instead of tomorrow, because tomorrow they're going to be out at something that they don't want to do (I think this is hilarious; they're going to watch my cousin in some kind of ice-skating event; Mom has been complaining about this for weeks, they even have to pay for it, they really don't want to go, and yet at no point have they just told my dad's brother/sister-in-law "No thanks"!).

But tonight, [personal profile] angelofthenorth and will be out seeing one of my favorite symphonies (we played the Finale in high school, I bought a cheapo CD of this and something else from Dvorak afterwards because listening to stuff I used to know that intimately is always fun...and M hasn't been to the Bridgewater Hall yet so I'm looking forward to seeing what she thinks of it).

So I told my parents about half an hour ago that I'm around if they want to talk, and the one downside of modern video meeting platforms (that works on both Linux and an iPad operated by people who don't know, for example, the difference between text messages and e-mails; we use Jitsi) is that I can't just wait to hear if they call so I'm tethered to my laptop for the next little while still, to see if my mom appears with her usual greeting "Do we have you?"

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