lenores_raven | Reading

Today I went for a physio appointment.

(This one was for a whole different area, yay, and a different person, and I think went quite well.)

But anyway, I walked back a slightly different way, taking me along the parade of shops on the main drag towards the Tube station, and then the parade of shops round the corner from where I reside.

And okay, there were the boutique independent coffee shops, and assorted eateries of varied ethnicities, and a rather interesting-looking poncey delicatessen I had not checked before with some rather fascinating vinegars in the window (you were temptaaaaation), and the usual things like estate agents, dry cleaners, newsagents, pharmacy, etc.

Also:

Several yoga/Pilates studios, can there really be that much of a demand??? Maybe they offer different styles, but even so.

And there are two picture-framers within half a mile of one another, what are the odds, eh? This seems to me so very niche an enterprise I was wondering if 'picture-framing' is actually a front for something else.

I have also, slightly to my horror, discovered that the florist/fruit & veg shop where I bought the aubergines the other week, is run by a 'mumtrepreneur'. What fresh hell is this.

cosmolinguist

Last song I listened to: "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + the Machine is playing on the Doof right now. I love this song.

Favorite color: Green.

Currently watching: Literally currently watching the Doof. Otherwise, we've just finished Murderbot and I think the next thing up in the queue is the new series of Strange New Worlds.

Last movie: D and I went to see Superman over the weekend, it was fun and good.

Currently reading: I just got Angela Saini's Superior from the library.

Coffee or tea: This is biphobic! I like both! I tend to drink tea because I make a pot every morning for the household, the rest of which can't have coffee for one reason or another. But I grew up with coffee, it reminds me of my parents and grandparents and lots of nice things. Once a week or so I find myself really missing coffee so I make myself some. And I think if the situation was reversed and I lived with coffee drinkers, I don't know that I would miss tea in the same way.

Sweet/savory/spicy: This is also biphobic! They're all good and they go together well (like genders!). I suppose I'd have to say savory if I really had to pick one.

Relationship status: I love being my boyfriend's boyfriend.

Looking forward to: We have tickets to the livestream of Ian McKellan's trans production of Twelfth Night tomorrow night, Smithfest (Mr. Smith is angelofthenorth's cat, whose birthday is being celebrated on Saturday with a party here so we get to meet some of her friends), and Sunday D and I might go to Sheffield to see the Midsommars, the group I talked about here.

Current obsessions: The following is a baseball thing so don't worry if it makes no sense. The trade deadline. I'm gonna be so so fucking sad if the Twins trade Willi Castro. And I will not be okay at all if they trade Joe Ryan!

Last Googled: Good question! Personally, apparently all the stuff I linked to in yesterday's entry. But since then for work I googled some boring stuff about the e-scooter trials in England being extended another two years.

Last thing you ate and really enjoyed: Tagine and clafoutis. angelofthenorth cooked tonight. This is how I learned what clafoutis is -- though it felt like something I could've easily grown up with. I bet my mom would love it.

Currently working on: For work, still the first draft of that report. I had to chair an excruciating meeting today with a bunch of people who are basically waiting on me to do that so they can do tasks that depend on it. Personally...hm, just the usual: trying to go to the gym and read library books in a timely fashion. I think my new project is trying to pursue top surgery privately but it's so far stuck at a very early hurdle and this makes me tired and defeatist.

james

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

spiralsheep

- Current reading quote: "That’s why rich adults hate the sort of thing that Louisa paints on the walls of buildings, not because they love walls, but because they hate the fact that there are beautiful things that are free."

- [Unrelatedly] GNU Terry Pratchett

- FIELD TRIP!!1!! I won't be around for a few days over the weekend as, with luck and calm winds in a suitable direction, I'll be on a field trip to an island without personal coms. Access is occasionally a bit overexciting, and colleagues from A.N.Other Institution were once stranded there for a while (with emergency rations and evacuation by airlift if necessary, obv), so there's a teensy possibility I might be absent for a couple of weeks, lol, but the weather forecast seems as fair as we could hope and we have both a landing craft and a RIB (RIBs offer a more comfortable journey but are harder to un/load). Colleagues Emeritus and I have assured our team that if we are unable to ascend the rugged terrain we will supervise from the beach... with our flasks. Haven't asked Colleague Extremely Emeritus what's in his flask as it also attends his lectures, but am sure it's covered by the risk assessment. Have spoken sternly to them about referring to our very serious scientific endeavour as "a jolly". Had a minor nervous breakdown overnight when our before and after onshore accommodation arrangements were briefly in mild peril but hopefully that's sorted now. Onwards!

( Read more... )

oursin

Happy birthday,

heyokish!

james

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

nanila posting in

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!

torachan

1. Last day of relative calm before the new store opening. Tomorrow and Friday is the soft open and then Saturday and Sunday are grand opening weekend with a ton of events planned. I'm going to have to help out at least some of the day all four days, but I'm planning to take Monday off to recover.

2. Jasper is such a handsome guy.

nanila

After a gentle, slow decline into feeble old age, our beloved cranky gerbil, Nibbles, died last weekend.

( Description of pet death. )

I shall miss his almond-seeking nose boops. Rest well, Nibsy. Enjoy chasing your brother and Tiny the hamster in Small Rodent Valhalla.

pauraque posting in

common_nature

While hiking in a conserved wetland, I saw an informational sign about native pitcher plants. I had no idea we had these in New England; I always thought of carnivorous plants as a tropical thing. But I took a look around and they were certainly there!

three cups formed out of green leaves with red veins

three cups formed out of green leaves with red veins

This appears to be Sarracenia purpurea which has a lot of names in English, including Common Pitcher Plant. The specialized leaves form cup-shaped traps with nectar at the bottom that attracts bugs, which can't escape and are digested to provide nutrition for the plant. In this species the traps sit on the ground, and I don't know if I would have noticed them if I hadn't been looking.

( pitcher plant flower and habitat (2 photos) )

oursin

What I read

Finished This House of Grief, which is not the sort of thing I normally read much of (grim true crime in Australia) - and I started it and it languished for a bit and then I was reading it on the train and it became compelling, and I had to finish it before going on to anything else.

Sally Smith, A Case of Life and Limb (The Trials of Gabriel Ward Book 2) (2025), which was absolutely lovely, just so good.

Then got back to Selina Hastings on Sybille Bedford, which was a competent enough biography -

- except, I then read Norma Clarke, Brothers of the Quill: Oliver Goldsmith in Grub Street (2016) and she just does so much with context and making a literary living and Irish identity in the English literary world and issues of status and class and so on. And okay, part of that is because there's actually not a lot of reliable material on Goldsmith, so it makes sense to look at him in this wider view - and as part of the bro culture of the time (I admit this was rather less appealing than her earlier studies of women of the same era).

- so I looked back and thought there were quite a lot of questions around Sybille and what it meant to her to have all those affairs with women and yet be a bit iffy about claiming Lesbian identity - not to mention the economics of her situation - and class and nationality and so forth. But I guess that wasn't the book she was writing.

Then read Anthony Powell, The Valley of Bones (1964), which is sort of the male equivalent of those women's novels of the early stage of WW2 when it's all waiting round and preparation rather than anything actually happening.

On the go

Picking things up and putting them down, trying to decide what to read next.

Up next

Vide supra.

oursin

Happy birthday,

oyceter!

nanila posting in

awesomeers

torachan

1. Long day of driving going to San Diego today, but it was a much more pleasant visit than the last few times as things do seem to be improving in the store.

2. The guys came and fixed the back screen door today. I'm so used to dealing with the broken door that it's weird to have it working properly again, but I'm sure I'll get used to that again soon enough.

3. Ollie is such a chonker.

turlough posting in

common_nature

The only birds of prey I see here in my tiny town in south-eastern Sweden are Red Kites (Milvus milvus). They're usually soaring far too high up and away over the forest to get acceptable photos of. This morning however a pair was kind enough to come down low enough I could take ( these... )

Current Mood: satisfied

oursin

Paging the ponceyness police, what?

It’s never been easier to build an impressive-looking library, especially if you’re mostly interested in the colour and size of your books. Is this necessarily a bad thing?

In an age of constant scrolling, there is social capital to be gained by simply looking as if you are a cultured person who listens to music on vinyl and reads lots of books. And creating an aesthetically pleasing bookshelf is now easier than ever, thanks to an increase in booksellers who trade in “books by the metre”.

You know, I would be just slightly more sympathetic with people who are about The Aesthetic of BOOOX if they would ever demonstrate a touch of quirkiness and have shelves of (okay maybe nicely preserved copies) old Penguins? or those rather nifty little volumes of The Traveller's Library. Or just something that would suggest that this is more than just a step up from manifesting your Posh by having a lovely set of Heron Books Collectors Editions (bound in sumptious leatherette).

I think that if you're going to have Randomly Chosen For the Decorative Vibe books scattered about your pad, you should actually have to read at least some of them. And be able to respond to somebody asking about them without having to resort to whatever garbled wifflewoffle some AI engine serves up.

Okay, I am now meanly recalling the complete set of the works of Bulwer-Lytton in very good condition that lurked on a shelf in a bookshop I used to frequent. And also wondering as to whether there are collected editions of CP Snow's yawn-worthy 'Strangers and Brothers' sequence.

On the other hand, they might pick up something that they enjoyed and found engrossing, and develop the habit of reading. I would be there for that, in fact.

My own aesthetic is, the books have taken over, what do you mean, curated? maniacal laughter.

jazzyjj posting in

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!

torachan

1. I had a lot of stuff to get caught up on at work after the weekend, but I got caught up.

2. I kept seeing ads for one of these blanket hoodie things and although it's not the season for it, it did look very comfy, so I ended up ordering it and it arrived today. It is indeed very comfy and I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this during colder weather.

3. We had a nice evening at Disneyland.

4. Gemma!

torachan

Today was a first. Carla drove down to Disneyland from home, and I met her there after work. (Usually if we go after work, either she rides with me and then takes the car to do whatever while I'm doing work stuff, or I go back home after work and pick her up then head back down.)

( Read more... )

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

I interrupt my travel series to share some photos from the last months of birds. This barn swallow was caught almost by accident as it headed off, coming towards us in the parking lot.

( Read more... )

Style Credit

Style: Plain for Tabula Rasa

merely this and nothing more

Reading

I began to wonder if it was code for something

A meme from @used_songs

Orange Alert

In which there are 52 times Our Heroine improves her habitat, week 29-30

(no subject)

Therapy fanfic

Just One Thing (24 July 2025)

Daily Happiness

RiP Nibbles, Nov 2021 - 20 July 2025

carnivorous pitcher plant

Wednesday wishes that certain institutions did not insist on doing business by phone

(no subject)

Just One Thing (23 July 2025)

Daily Happiness

kites in the sky

Think they should be obliged to READ a certain percentage, hmmmm?

Just one thing: 22 July 2025

Daily Happiness

2025 Disneyland Trip #52 (7/21/25)

Birds in Flight

Style Credit