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cats

Tristana has pica, but at least she isn't going to the emergency vet hospital in Raisio tonight

Tristana never misses an opportunity to eat hair. She can't have toys with feathers, and she has to be watched like a hawk when I'm brushing or grooming bunnies, because she will stalk the balls of discarded fur with a surprising amount of tenacity and sneakiness. She frequently manages to steal tiny tufts of bunny fur from the edges of doorways that Rowan passes through (which always accumulate a small fringe of faintly-waving fronds every few days if I don't clean them off), but since bunny grooming is a discrete activity that requires a lot of attention, it is usually possible to simply carry the fur away and put it in a closed trash can that she can't reach without incident (although there have been past incidents with her stealing fur from the trashcan, but she's never managed to get very much).

So half an hour ago Tristana started being both extremely distressed and moderately distressing: ( cw: vomit )

(When picturing a ping-pong-sized ball of fur, recall that Tristana, while fully grown, is tiny. She was a runt and never fully made up for two weeks as an infant when she didn't gain weight. She weighed 2.3 kg or about 5 lb last year, and she is slim and wiry, the typical bundle-of-twigs/greyhoundish Oriental breed build.)

She's finished regurgitating now, and we put a bowl of clean water and the turtle bed, opened up so she could crawl inside, on the heated floor of the upstairs bathroom for her, and she immediately slunk in there to think about her misfortunes. I mean, to feel sorry for herself, not to analyze; I doubt she has any idea the fur-eating was related to her current distress.

But backing up to about midday today, earlier I had brushed Rowan and then neatly rolled up the excess fluff into a ball like I always do; but instead of carrying it into the kitchen and hiding it in the trash under the sink where Tristana couldn't get it, I left it on top of the trashcan because I was going to come right back and use the same trashbag to change the liners in the bunny litterboxes. I was going to put the soiled paper on top of the fur, so it would have been just as inaccessible. However, I got distracted and forgot.

So this is actually kind of an ADHD tax.

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Just on a Roll, so Bear with Me (or Bee with Me, as it Happens)

Bee at the Minnesota Historical Society's pollenator garden, yesterday

My whole household was up this morning at 3:30 am to see Jas off to the airport. Even my notorious late-sleeper, Mason, got up to come along on the ride to the airport.

We are all going to miss Jas. Jas won my heart over not only because Mason is so clearly in love with them, but also because they cooked at least two evening meals for us! And, convinced Mason to do the dishes afterwards! Independent of each other both Shawn and I very much implied to Jas that not only were they welcome back any time, they were welcome to STAY!!

We did manage to pack them back with some gifts so hopefully we aren't failing this whole gift-giving ritual thing.

They will be missed! But, Mason is already making plans to go to them next (Oklahoma City in Oklahoma--a place he's been once already, but about which I know almost nothing.) We joked that we'd have to try to host Jas in the winter, so they could see Minnesota at its worst.

The news continues to be horrific. I guess I knew that the National Guard being called out on citizens for being Black was probably not that far behind the concentration camps for Brown folks, but JFC. I'm supposed to be traveling to the DC area in mid-September for Capclave and I have no idea what will be waiting for me there. Like, WTF. To be crystal clear--not that I fear for myself, because the last time I was in DC I walked through the area that the tour guide book suggested was unsafe with my then twelve year old son and we had a great time, the only thing I exposed him to was some poverty not unlike the neighborhood we live in back here in the Twin Cities. People were super friendly and helpful when we were lost. DC is very Black? This is, last time I checked, not a crime or indicative of criminal behavior. Maybe a person might feel safer in DC if, I dunno, they weren't racist.

So, yeah, here's a cool picture of a grasshopper (under the cut for the bugphobic)...

( WARNING: Bugs! )

Entry tags:

interior design

Lying awake thinking abt. early 20th-c. historical-eclectic romanticism and the nation-state

I can't get excited about fandom right now, or at least can't find a fandom to get excited about right now, but I can always get excited about the history of the decorative arts.

I've been reading vintage magazines to try to immerse myself more in the worldview, the history, and the language of the period I love most (centered on 1920s, but including the whole between-wars period, the Golden Age of detective fiction, etc), and the last few weeks of browsing and reading Vogue and Harper's Bazar; Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's Home Companion, Pictorial Review, and McCall's; and House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens and House & Garden from the 1890s-1930s (on HathiTrust and Internet Archive mostly; there are various websites that collect links to vintage magazines online) have deepend my understanding of the period so much. A lot of that is general information about the period, turns of phrase, discourse style, beauty and graphic design styles, and bits of trivia. But it's also filled in a huge gap that I didn't even really understand was there in my knowledge of the history of decorative arts and design.

I'm super excited about my new understanding of early 20th century romanticism right now. Which is highly related to and mostly the same thing as national romanticism, a trend stretching back to the 19th century; but also an aesthetic and stylistic background that was actually more commonplace, more widespread, than the influence of art deco and art nouveau and midcentury modernism in their respective periods, but is often overlooked when culture looks back. I knew the term "romanticism" in visual arts and design before, of course. In the 19th century it links up with the arts & crafts movement; in the 20s and 30s, my understanding was vaguer: cutesy florals and... folk art? I now know that yes, it was that, but it was so much more than that: it was historical nostalgia expressed in historical eclecticism, the dominant aesthetic being an expression of a cultural obsession with creating and glorifying a personalized, domesticated patriotic past.

It was still very much tied to the project of creating the nation-state, in this case mainly through oodles of mass-produced imitation antique furniture marketed as "early American" or "Tudor" or "Gothic" or "French provincial" or "Empire". (Genuine antiques and reproduction antiques were also popular or at least popularly admired, don't get me wrong; but a great deal of the mass-produced furniture in this period was more about an antique vibe than about any sort of realism - something that was also very much true of the earlier explosion of Victorian-era "revival" styles caused by the initial spread of industrialization and an earlier ballooning of the middle classes. Victorian-produced furniture and design styles are also very much historical eclecticism.) This continued into the midcentury, when the pastiche styles previously called "early American" and "Tudor" had evolved into what was then generally referred to as "Colonial" (they meant American colonial specifically), exemplified by the mid-century modest ranch house's frequent pine kitchen and fake wrought iron and hammered brass hardware. Midcentury American ranches are iconic today, but the national imagination is inclined to populate them with mid-mod and streamline modern in blocks of color and metal-trimmed laminates; but in the period, the pine kitchen and the gingham ruffle were actually far more popular, even at modernism's height.

I'm focusing on American history in this narrative because I'm reading American magazines, but this was happening all over Europe. National romanticism in the 19th century produced a flourishing interest in cultural history and folk art in Europe too, and the same historical-vibe furniture recalling pre-Industrial styles was mass-produced for a growing middle class across Europe in the early 20th century. In Finland and Sweden the style was dominated by Gustavian (early 19th century, neoclassical) and rococo and baroque styles, often simplified, but the Nordic countries were leaders in modernism from the 1930s onwards, which changed the picture somewhat. Dipping into museums and auction sites from Finland and the Scandis brings a strong wind of light woods and simplified forms, painted instead of dark-stained wood, and a healthy admixture of functionalist/Bauhaus styles. And also way more actual crystal and imitation crystal chandeliers. Finns and Swedes fucking love their crystal chandeliers. I can understand their cultural history and dark winters and all that before the invention of electric lighting, but they still need to pump the brakes a bit. Chandeliers do not belong in your kitchen or bathroom, guys.

Entry tags:

Bee-cause I Can

A bumblebee in the center of a bright yellow flower, a classic shot.

So, what's news, you ask? Or maybe you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Just because I can.

A lot of my writer-type and fan friends are headed off to Worldcon in Seattle. As I have noted before, I am not on any programming this year, though I am attending viturally. At some point here, I'll probably host a virtual hangout or two, just because I can and it is probably the only way that I'm going to feel at all involved in this convention. The only good news is that Naomi Kritizer tends to win the Hugo at the cons I'm in "attendence" at, even when that attendence is only virtual. So, (knocking on wood for her) that will happen.

My day started out kind of supidly. I got a response from one of the attendees about programming interest from this year's Gaylaxicon and so I went into the document to make sure to add names, etc., etc. My keyboard, which is wireless (and battery operated,) started flaking out. It erased entire lines from the programming descriptions (thank all the gods for control-z!) and added rows of llllllllllllllllllllllll or whatever other letter I was attempting to type. I had already been having the thought, "I wonder how I'll know when my keyboard needs a new battery?" so I sussed out pretty quickly that the problem was, in fact, dying keyboard batteries. What followed was a lot of stupid, mostly of the variety of what IT folks used to cal ID10T or Problem Exists Between Computer and Chair.

I tried a number of AAA batteries that we had around the house and none of them seem to work. To be fair to me, it was clear that in our usual battery bag (in that one drawer, you know the one--every house has that one drawer, I swear,) one of the batteries had exploded. So, when I tried them in my keyboard and they didn't work, it wasn't necessarily that stupid of me to assume that the problem might be the batteries rather than my ability to follow illustrated directions. It was just mildly stupid. Luckily, we already had a real need to get some Draino from Menards since our bathroom tub has been draining very slowly, so I made it a twofer and picked up some always-useful dishsoap while I was at it.

But then, when the brandnew batteries didn't work, I knew the problem was NOT the batteries. Did I not have the little toggle pushed in all the way? Did I need to reboot?

Please note what I have not yet considered: could it be that I have put the batteries in the wrong direction?

It took far too long for me to figure out that, indeed, perhaps the most obvious thing to do was to flip the batteries and see if that solved the problem. Now, again to be fair to me, I think that I was really convinced I knew which way the positive terminal had been facing when I pulled the batteries out, but it took me FAR TOO long to finally get a pair of reading glasses and a flashlight and shine it into the battery compartment to read the damn "positive goes here" pictogram.

JFC.

Monday? Do you have to be so damn Monday?!

Monday: "I am this way just because I can!" *evil cackle!!*

In other news, today is Jas's last day with us. They are leaving tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am. I mean, it is true that 5:30 am, is normally when our alarm goes off, but it feels ungodly to have to be leaving the house by that time. The kids have gone off to Como Conservatory today for their last day out on the town, which prompted me to remember to buy tickets for this year's Obon ceremony. As discussed before, Obon is celebrated very differently in America (and throughout the Japanese diaspora) than it is in Japan, where it is more like the Mexican Day of the Dead. Here (and in Britian and Brazil, which, is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan,) Obon tends to be celebrated as a cultural festival. Not that I'm complaining! I have enjoyed the heck out of Como Conservatory's Obon every year that I've remembered to go!

It's been weird, however, to not have the car? It's been great for Mason and Jas to be able to take off and do whatever they like for however long they like, but, inevitably, I'll be at home and I think, "Ah, yes! I could do that one errand while everyone is out!" and yeah, no, I can't--because whatever it is, isn't really the "just take the bus" kind of errand, like groceries. People obviously do do grocery runs by bus, but hauling a bunch of bags that far isn't fun for anyone. So, yeah.

I think that's everything I know for now. How's by you?

Did the memory change, or did my taste?

Every now and then I get a craving like,

"I wish I could read [fandom] the way it was before [subsequent bad canon/creator behavior]."

The thing is, all the stuff I enjoyed the first time I read it is still there, but... it never feels the same. All that Avengers tower fic from 2012 and all that season 1 Teen Wolf fic, for example, actually don't taste the way I remember them tasting.

This is true of a number of foods that I liked as a kid, too. The smell of bacon or hamburger cooking are slightly nauseating to me now that I haven't eaten them in 20 years, but sometimes I still wake up from a dream wishing I could have the bacon cheeseburgers I ate at age 19 from the college dining hall once a week.

Entry tags:

health: allergies

There must have been a musk in that curl spray

Like oud or something. Not patchouli anyway. Because after shampooing it three times the night before last, I could still smell that on it yesterday every time it got in my face (the physically irritating part of the smell did wash out, but I personally dislike musks and think they're gross even when they don't make me sneeze). I can still smell it today too, but my hair is dry, and I don't want to shampoo it again yet.

So I guess this is no longer directly related to allergies, but I don't have a haircare tag or an "I fucking hate perfume flames on the side of my face" tag.

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Bee Happy?

Something other than a bumblebee for once!

Image: Another upside down bee, this time one that isn't a bumblebee!

Weird thing I am noticing. Bumblees give no craps if a phone camera is hovering over them. They're also slow moving, generally? I even had one curious bumblebee just latch on to my finger and inspect the camera for itself. Honey and other bees? Camera shy! It's much harder to get a picture of them!! So, here is, shockingly, a bee that is not a bumblebee.

Let's see, what's new with me?

Jas and Mason are continuing their whirlwind exploration of the Twin Cities. Yesterday was the "must see" of Minnehaha Falls, with the requiste lunch at Sea Salt. Mason apparently tried fried oysters for the first time, thanks to Jas. The two of them also did the whole walk all the way to the Mississippi River, since I mean, you're nearly there, so why not? Over dinner at Bole (an Ethiopian place here in St. Paul), Jas said that they had never actually seen sandstone in the wild before, as it were, and found it deeply fascinating. This is the sort of thing that I love hearing about because, having grown up surrounded by sandstone bluffs, I forget how uncommon sandstone might be to someone from another biome.

We took Jas to Bole because, while they have heard of Ethiopia restaurants, they have not been because berbere spices are a migraine trigger fro their mother. So, we were able to provide a guilt-free experience, which I think they quite enjoyed. We ended up sitting outside in the patio, despite the mugginess and threat of rain. It's always so much fun to show off the cool stuff in the city, you know? Our food (and our immigrants, damn it!) is always some of the very best parts of it all.

Since I believe I reported about this earlier, I thought I'd also give an update on Rhubarb's inappropriate urination issues? If you don't want to read about cat pee problems (and who would blame you!?), I will put it under the cut.

( Cat bathroom issues, solutions, and theories.... )

tl:dr we're still working on it? I have faith we'll get her fixed without having to restort to drugs.

That's all the news that's fit to print, plus some that had to appear under the cut.

Entry tags:

health: allergies

Not a satisfactory situation or explanation

Last night I was joylessly reading until way too late in bed, and then after I put my phone down, I suddenly started to notice my throat hurt a bit.

Now, I do have a perfume allergy that has caused my throat to swell mostly-closed in the past, but only about 5(?)x in the past 20 years, and only after a Lot (the perfume has to be concentrated close to my nose and mouth probably).

And yes, yesterday I had tried a new curl-reviving spray and I had been mildly annoyed by its perfume all day, but it hadn't irritated my nose right away the way dangerous perfumes (and also many others) do.

So when I started to worry that the product was causing an allergic reaction that might make my throat swell closed and kill me in my sleep, this was extremely unlikely for several reasons: the perfume had already proven itself not similar to ones that caused a reaction before, and also that's not really how anaphylaxis works, probably?

But my throat hurt and every perfume I could smell seemed to be aggravating it. So I decided that getting up at 3 am and showering all the perfumed products off would be a better use of my time than going downstairs to take antihistamines, painkillers, and a benzo. I shampooed my hair three times and combed conditioner through it in the shower, then put a folded towel on my pillow and slept on it after towel-drying, without applying my usual leave-in.

My throat feels a little better but still irritated today, and I took loratidine and paracetamol with breakfast. I wonder why my throat got irritated, though. I hope I'm not getting sick, but probably not; the last time I went to the store was Wednesday, so the incubation period for a respiratory infection wouldn't match up very well.

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Bees, More Bees (Also, D'uh)

Today's bee, captured in flight.

16;9, y'all. It's just landscape instead of portrait. MAN, I feel dumb. But, I don't feel as though any of my previous bee photos are wasted. I can also submit photos to the New York Times Spelling Bee that are square. So, I should be able to do some editing and send them again! (They are gonna love me, there. OTHO, I'm sure they get a lot of dummies like me!)

I found a resource rich (as in chock full of bees) area that is part of my daily routine. The Minnesota Historical Society! They have a huge pollenator garden on their hillside and yesterday it was literally buzzing with activity.

Meanwhile, Jas has proved themselves to be an excellent house guest. Their family recently had to trip to Japan (and Taiwan, where Jas has a grandmother,) and they brought us lots of absolutely PERFECT gifts. Shawn loves konpeitou--the Japanese hard candy that looks like little sandburs. Not only did Jas bring a package of the actual sweets for her, but ALSO earrings that are in the shape of konpeitou! This is especially wonderful because Shawn (who has otherwise very little interest in all of my Japanese stuff) likes the idea of saying "Ganbetta" (do your best!) but can never remember it, so often tells me, "Konpeitou!" when she means to wish me good luck. So konpeitou has been our silly way of wishing each other good luck.

For me, Jas brought some fun washi tape and post-it notes. Again, perfect for me, if you know my love of letter writing, etc.

Then, apparently, their mother also just sent along a whole bunch of odds and ends as gifts, too. We're going to have to step up our game? I have not participated in this competative gift giving thing before. Is it a Southern thing? (Jas's folks live in Oklahoma.) I ask because Mason's other friend Gray, also has parents who send Mason home with odd gifts (they're in Missouri.) Thoughts, any Southern State living friends of mine?

Today, I am planning on letting them have the car to do with as they like. Mason loves Saint Paul (and Minneapolis) and delights in showing off all the cool features found therein. I know they are planning on seeing Minnehaha Falls because that is a tourist MUST (and also Mason loves eating at Sea Salt.) Yesterday, they walked to the Creamery formerly known as Izzy's now... somthing else, which I have forgotten. So, Jas is getting the full tour!

I shall end with a slightly different bug. If anyone on my list of friends is bug-averse, please let me know and I will put these photos under the cut!

grasshopper on lily

Image: grasshopper on bright red lily (in Grantsville, WI. We stopped at an old-fashioned rootbeer stand type place that had these amazing flowers and I spotted this little fellow.)

Entry tags:

plant and garden

Benjamin the benjamin ficus is living in the enclosed porch for the summer

Benjamin is one of several large and venerable potted plants inherited from Wax's granny, so he's probably older than I am; he has been in front of the east window in the kitchen since we moved here. However, he's had a hard time this spring after Sipuli peed in his pot several times to protest her litter box being smelly.

Once it got warm enough to not shock him in the process, Wax discarded all his old soil, shook and jiggled and rinsed his roots, and repotted him with new soil; and in apology for the trauma of that, she felt obliged to let him stay out for a while (but not fully outside, where the temperature fluctuations and wind and rain would be too much for him).

The thing is... Benjamin hasn't been pruned in a long time, and he's probably about six feet tall and four feet wide, now.

The porch isn't large.

As Wax put it when carrying out the recycling last week, it's not very convenient having your porch half full of tree.

She says she can't bring him inside, though, because he's enjoying himself so much (making lots of new leaves) that it would be mean.

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Upside Down Bee on a Wednesday!

Bumblebee hanging off Joe Pye Weed in my front yard.

It's Wednesday!

My quest to crack the New York Times Spelling Bee picture selection continues. Today's entry might be a little blurry, but I just loved how I managed to get a shot of the bee hanging upside down like that. I got a few others today, which I will pepper the NYTimes with over the next few days. I've been trying to not be a pest myself and have been limiting myself to a single entry a day. I THINK I have these pictures sized correctly at 9:16, but maybe not? My phone actually has a setting for 9:16, but they might actually want 16:9?? Which, I'm not sure how to do, so maybe I am sending these all into the void. I guess we'll see.

I have just sent Mason and Jas off to find something for Jas to eat. Jas arranged a surprise visit with Shawn and I some months ago, and today was the big "SURPRISE!" Mason nearly cried he was so pleased and happy to see them walk in the door!

OF COURSE, the surprise was almost ruined today. Just after I had gotten a text from Jas that they had landed, Mason started nudging me about going out practice driving. I had to make up a lie on the spot and I ended up saying, "Uh, I would be happy to do that in a bit, but I'm... uh, waiting for a package. Which I... might have to go pick up?" I thought he'd figure out for sure, but this apparently fooled Mason enough that I later found out from Jas that Mason was texting them saying, "My ima is being very weird about a surprise package for me? I don't understand what's going on, but I guess I'll find out."

Sure enough!

By chance an actual package that I had been waiting for came to our doorstep and so, I picked that up, I walked in holding it, and said, "Yep, I picked up my special delivery." He looked up just in time to see Jas trail in behind me.

If Mason could be the epitome of "..." he was at that moment. It went:

...

"WHAT."

Then, "OH MY GOD. WHAT?"

This could not have worked out better.

I might have gotten a little misty-eyed, too. I ran off to the post office before I embarassed myself and also to give Mason some room to give Jas the house tour without me awkwardly trailing behind.

As for the rest of my life, let's see. I haven't read much of anything at all this week, but I did finish watching The Apothecary's Diaries which I'm weirdly happy to find out has a third season in the works. I don't know why I say weirdly? Maybe because I'm both rooting for and not rooting for the romance? I'd kind of like Mao Mao to get to be happily ace ever after, but I also kind of like the Prince/Eunuch? Anyway, then I started up Rent-a-Girlfriend because why not, I guess. If any anime fans have a better recommendation for something to follow up The Apothecary's Dairies, please feel free to drop it into the comments!

I'll have some thoughts on my Thirsty Sword Lesbians game yesterday night in a bit, but right now I think I'm going to bask in the warm glow of "Jas is here and my son couldn't be more happy!"

Entry tags:

places: pargas

Shades of Local Color in the Villages of Ålön

We live in a tiny town with only one commercial street, but spread out with low population density. Our island of Ålön is about 77 square kilometers (about 44 square miles), and most of it is farms and forests.

My late MIL's summer cottage was fifteen minutes by car out towards one of the corners of the island, in the village of Levo, but what a world of difference! Behind its little orchard stretched fallow and planted fields; across the winding road lay a little forest, and on the other side of that the bay of Finland. (The neighbors gave permission to park extra cars in their field and to use their little scrap of sand and dock for swimming.) The music of the evening in Levo was birdsong and the rushing of the wind.

Here one block behind city hall and the police station, in the village of Parsby, we sit in the midst of urban decay, as mentioned recently. Our little street contains three inhabited houses and two abandoned wrecks that the city owns and is allowing to fall into public health hazards, with asbestos everywhere, roofs caving in, broken windows, and fallen trees and power lines. The street leading down to the back of the police station contains two more inhabited houses and three more decaying wrecks, and the city tore all the pavement on it up last January to fix the pipes and hasn't paved it again yet. Across the other street (we live on the corner) is a big clot of densely-populated midcentury apartment buildings, whose retired inhabitants risk their lives on the above-mentioned poorly-maintained ripped-up road in winter (it's a steep hill).

Because our town is rural and the driving age for cars is 18 in Finland, the plague of Parsby (and small towns everywhere) is teenagers on mopeds. The music of the evening in Parsby starts with wood pigeons, thrushes, and the distant buzzing of cars on the highway, but is interrupted periodically by the deafening roar of mopeds speeding by under the window and teenagers practicing being cool and adult by shouting the equivalent of "FUCK" at each other. (I fantasize several times a week about an externally-mounted loudspeaker that would play a voice yelling "Shut up" towards the street.)

It would've been impossible to quickly walk to the store from Levo, though.

Entry tags:

dad's injury

The Ambulance Merry-Go-Round

My dad (C5/6 quadriplegic wheelchair user) has been in and out of the hospital all spring and summer.

Initially, there was some kind of internal bleeding, I think, and he kept having very low blood pressure and cardiac events and then having to have his many medications adjusted. Then he had to have a colectomy, and then he got a persistently recurring UTI that is resistant to antibiotics. A lot of these times he's been carted off to the hospital it's been for low blood pressure or a slight fever, and it seems to my sister and me like they're just stabilizing him, tweaking his medication, and releasing him, sometimes the same day, only for him to be back in an ambulance in less than a week.

This is having a weird effect where it's cumulatively and abstractly more scary every time he goes, while at the same time it is becoming so familiar that it's starting to feel routine. I know this is why people got convinced they were safe from COVID after a few months of wearing a mask and why people are frequently injured in the streets near their homes: the cognitive illusion that an action is proved safe if you've done it a bunch of times and nothing bad happened. Or in the case of these hospital visits, bad things happened, but he didn't get seriously (ICU) ill.

It's rough on my sister, who lives with her husband and my parents in the US, and I can't really support her long distance very effectively. And even if it were safe to travel there now, there's no way to know how long it would keep happening, so it still wouldn't probably be practical for me to go.

Entry tags:

Artsy Fartsy

Fancy shadowy shot of a bee on fleasbane

Image: Artsy shadowy shot of a bee on a fleasbane blossom

I think I will try this one on the New York Times. It's awfully artsy. I'm not sure how the New Yorkers could resist something this fancy! Even though, I'm pretty sure that the shadow was caused by my own body. But, they don't need to know just how amateur I am.

Yesterday was our last day up at our friends' cabin. As I've noted, they have a rewilded and naturalized their shoreline. What I may never have mentioned is that maintaining native plantings is constant work. One of the things I like to do for Gerriann is pull whatever non-natives they identify for me. This work is not required. Our friends are extremely generous and would have us up to the cabin even if all we did was laze around in the sun and swim in the lake. We've been friends for decades. Mason doesn't know what summer is without a trip to visit Ger & Barb's cabin.

But this year I had some fun because Ger identified TWO new plants for me to pull. Mostly, what I'm pulling are trees that are trying to establish themselves in this nice sunny spot on the shore. Some of them are even native trees, but when you do this sort of thing--rewild or naturalize--You do sort of have to decide what kind of look you want and Ger wants sun and sedges and a kind of open prairie (only with lake plants) look. At any rate, I am sore but happy today having dug up a bunch of offending trees!

Even though the wind was cold yesterday, I also spent a huge amount of time in the actual lake. At one point it was just me and the loon. Lovely.

Here's all of us!

the Siren crew (Geriann, Barb, Mason, Shawn and me)

the Siren crew (Geriann, Barb, Mason, Shawn and me)

Image: Geriann (center), right front (me), right back (Barb), center back (Mason), and left (Shawn)

Entry tags:

Here's looking at you, Kid..

A bee looking directly at the camera

I like this shot a lot, but it's unfortunately a little too blurry for the New York Times. So, here it is for you, my bee loving friends.

Yesterday was our first full day up at our friends' cabin in Siren, Wisconsin. Mason and I went driving on the highway up here. Not 35 E -- no offense to Mason, but that highway is scary even to me, a seasoned driver. Instead, we went on these littler one and two lane highways. He did really well, all things considered. He's still a very timid driver, but obviously practice is the key to gaining confidence.

Ger and Barb took me to Siren's Farmer's market which reminded me very much of the one

naomikritzer and I used to go to regularly, right down to the random musician in the middle of it all. I ended up picking up a couple of fun jams--an onion and garlic jam, which I tried out on sandwiches and really enjoyed. The other one was a mango, peach, and jalapeno one that I THOUGHT Shawn might try, but she won't even taste it. Ah well. Mason and I will use up that one.

I also bought some fun scented soaps. This is one thing that I'm a sucker for--I ADORE handmade soaps of almost any variety, but especially if they have fun essential oils in them.

From there we checked out the Trunk and Trash, which was basically an old-fashioned flea market. I'd been hoping for a swap meet, but those usually require a corresponding car show, since a lot of what is "swapped" are various car components. The flea market was largely as advertised--trash, but it was still fun to see what people had out, sort of like just getting to go to a bunch of rummage sales all at once. I did actually pick something up. One person had a bunch of beading related things for sale, including a watch kit. I have no intention of making the watch they have beads for, but Shawn and I briefly got into beading and so have a bunch of fun (and goddess themed) beads around. I thought I might try using the kit to design my own beaded watch. Even if I don't, the whole thing cost me a dollar. So, it's not a huge waste.

The exciting nature thing that happened was that yesterday morning we saw a FOX. It just came dashing through Gerriann's natural shoreline. We were sitting outside and, ONCE AGAIN, my brain said, "Cat!" No, dog, then finally, "OMG, the fox!" We knew one was around because one of the angler who came by in a boat on Friday night said that he'd seen one along the shoreline. Sure enough! This was by FAR the closest I've been to a fox. I've seen them now and again, but usually from a car and at some distance.

Shawn, who has never seen a fox in her life, missed seeing this one by about five seconds. She'd just gone to the garbage (which Ger and Barb have to keep locked up in the garage because there have also been bears--a mama and three cubs!--sighted recently, and they've had their garbage cans mauled). We have, thankfully, not seen the bears while we were outside.

Otherwise, I've been taking a LOT of bee pictures for the New York Times (which they will never use, but I don't care.) And, for Gerriann, who is always interested to see what her naturalized shoreline attracts, pictures of butterflies. It's been SO LOVELY.

fancy butterfly

Entry tags:

New Obsession

Image: a bumble bee on a purple echinaca/coneflower

My wife and I play the New York Times Spelling Bee game together every morning as part of waking up. I recently discovered that they have a way for anyone to submit photos of bees, which they use as lead pictures for their hints page. I have started obsessively trying to get good pictures of bees to see if one of mine might make the cut. There's no pay. You do get a byline as a kind of a thank you, and, since, I'm not actually aiming for a job as a photographer "for the exposure" is actually plenty of payment for me. I'm kind of in it, actually, for the bragging rights.

They probably get a million of these a day. And, they will likely never pick any of mine.

NONE of this diminishes my enjoyment and obsessiveness.

Check out this picture of a TINY-ASS bee in flight.

very smol bee in flight

Image: find the tiny bee. Be impressed!

Anyway, this is what I am doing to keep myself sane during these trying times. How about you?

Entry tags:

finland,
health

The ibuprofen barrier (also the paracetamol barrier)

Tragically, the supply of ibuprofen we bought the last time we went to the US - in 2017 - is running out now! Ibuprofen is more expensive in Finland and you can only buy 30 tablets of 400mg each at a time, and you can't mail it internationally, but you can bring it in your luggage, so in the past, I have just brought back a bunch of bottles each time I visited the US. (Technically, you can only bring your own medication for personal use, but we've never had a problem.)

The even more tragic part is that my sister was here just a year ago, but I forgot to ask her to bring it. Obviously it would be unwise to go there in the near future now, and I'm not sure if it would be fully safe even for my white middle-class family members to leave the country in case they had trouble going back (although they don't have any travel plans in the near future, because my dad, being quadriplegic, is immunocompromised and air travel is an elevated risk for him, and he's been in and out of the hospital lately).

When I was a teenager and young adult I used ibuprofen heavily for cramps, but in my 30s the severity lessened dramatically and I was often able to skip painkillers or get by with a small dose of paracetamol/acetaminophen, so the supply from our last visit has lasted longer than expected. (The last bottle has an expiration date in 2020, so possibly it is only working by the placebo effect at this point.) Concurrently with the perimenopausal symptoms I've started getting over the last few years, though, the cramps have started to worsen again and a couple of times in recent months I think they've been more painful than when I was a teenager! (But I also can't be sure because it's about 25 years ago.) A few years ago I was advised to try 1000mg paracetamol + 600mg ibuprofen together in case of emergency, and I now typically need to do this a few times per month. And also to buy paracetamol approximately every 1.5 months, because you can't buy more than 30 (500mg) tablets of paracetamol at a time either, and Wax and I both get migraines (not bad migraines by you Migraine Sufferer standards, but they are still headaches)! I've just never happened to bring paracetamol/acetaminophen back in my luggage because (a) I didn't know I could and should use it instead of ibuprofen until I was in my late 30s and (b) until recently there was always a larger bottle of it around leftover from various prescriptions.

Ugh, and I hate big Finnish 400mg ibuprofen tablets, too. They're not nearly as nice as the standard round coated ones you get in the US. And if you buy gel caps you can't break them! Come to think of it, I also don't like the big paracetamol tablets, but I don't have any clear memories of the size and shape of acetaminophen tablets to compare them to. But, honestly, they would have to be fairly awful tablets to be worse than the inconvenience and annoyance of buying them 30 at a time.

Entry tags:

cats

failure of classical conditioning

Sipuli is still unable to calm down enough to approach Tristana closely through the gate, in spite of ample opportunity; it seems like Tristana would like for her to.

(So no real change since I last wrote about this.) The problem is no longer that Tristana is afraid to come close to the gate; for the past 3? months it's instead been that Tristana will sit right there and if Sipuli just walked over and sat down they could sniff each other through it, but she wants to be friends too badly and she gets too excited and flings her entire body on the gate and tries to grab Tristana through it. And then Tristana backs off (without being too upset) because she doesn't want to be grabbed and she doesn't like sudden movements and loud noises.

After the thousands of times she got excited and pounced and Tristana left, Sipuli has learned that Something Bad is associated with her getting all excited... but she doesn't appear to know that it's the jumping/grabbing. Instead she sees Tristana and starts to get excited and then after about five seconds she gets embarrassed/anxious and retreats.

This happens even if she didn't make any sudden movements. She'll see Tristana sitting patiently on her side of the gate with her nose up against it looking curiously at her and she'll start towards her with fascinated ears, and then she'll pause about a foot away, turn around in a circle, pace a little bit, and then leave and go under a chair.

They HAVE touched noses through the gate a couple of times and Sipuli gets to take walks in the rest of the house on a leash now, but she has not managed to touch noses on these walks yet; she's still getting too excited and trying to lunge or jump towards Tristana and being prevented by the leash.

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What about a Thursday?

What if I tried journaling two whole days in a row?

I'm willing to risk it, if you are.

I should be working on my novel, but I got out of the writing habit and now I've got to figure out how to claw my way back into a routine. This is going to sound counter intuitive, but luckily we are headed up to a friend's cabin tomorrow morning for a weekend of lakeside bliss. I will not even try to write over the weekend. HOWEVER, Monday will already be very Monday, being post-vacation, so I will just put my head down. I have a writers' Zoom every M-Th, so there's even a time to "show up to work" already scheduled. This should be a very effective restart button.

At least I hope it will be.

In the meantime, I have been, once again, working far too hard on preparing for the one shot I want to run at Gaylaxicon. I have, in the past, complained about some of the mechanics about Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Some of you may have heard this rant before (and still others may not give a hoot about RPGs,) in either case, feel free to skip the next little bit. I will even been kind to you and put it under a cut. You will miss the photo of what I've been calling my enrichment program, but them's the breaks, I guess. Your loss.

( Cut for likely disinterest )

But, yeah, so I've been occupying my time making these things for about 18 different pre-generated character sheets (2 choices for each of the nine "playbooks"). I always allow people to make their own characters on the spot, if they really, really prefer that... but in a cyberpunk setting knowing "what's allowed" can be hard. Plus, because the one shot is supposed to be fast and fun, I've pre-loaded all the pre-generated characters with some cool cyberpunk-y extra powers that won't really affect game play but add to the vibe.

Feel free to burst into applause at my effort.

Thank you, thank you very much!

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Why Always Wednesday?

Why is it always a Wednsday when I remember to blog? Like, I briefly wasn't even sure what day it was, but I was thinking "Gosh, I have some stuff I want to talk about" and lo and behold it is Wednesday.

Weird.

Anyway, I didn't do much reading since the last time you and I talked. System Collapse by Martha Wells came up on audio book and I nabbed it. Everyone has already read this book, but I will say that I spent the whole time that I was listening to it comparing the way it played out in my head to how it felt watching it. And I have feelings and observations about that, but, as I have said previously, I am going to save those thoughts for spaces, like conventions, where I can ask the room if they are okay with spoilers. I don't want to have to get a good spoiler font for DW or put everything under a cut, though, perhaps, eventually, I will.

I also read a few random (and I do mean random, as in anything that my library had volume one of) manga. As always, if you would like to read any of my thoughts on those, you can find them over on my manga blog: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/

My latest anime obsession is something I'm coming to (as usual) somewhat late to the game. I've been watching Apothecary's Diaries. Apothecary's Dairies is just my speed. Crimes get solved, life continues in the Forbidden City. I mean, it's sometimes more harrowing than that, but there is a certain satisfaction in this--as in many murder mystery shows--of SOLVING the crime. These days just accomplishing something vaguely positive seems like a huge win, you know?

Which is probably why I've started doing crossword puzzles again. When times are difficult or I'm processing a lot of grief and sadness, I do crossword puzzles. My wife had a subscription for years to Penny Games or whoever it is that does all the crossword puzzle booklets and so we have a huge pile of them around the house.

Before you get too concerned, my grief and sadness is existential for the most part. Politics is devestating on the daily. That's MUCH of it But, as I have posted here my brother in law also is dealing with kidney cancer. What you may not know is that one of Shawn's work colleagues recently lost her battle with liver cancer, and TWO of my friends--one so close that we consider her part of our extended family--are dealing with other types of cancers. (Universe? You can stop with the cancer storyline. Also four people is four too many, thank you very much. If we're doing some kind of season finale, let's have a very special episode about why kindness matters instead, okay? You can be as heavy-handed as you like on that one, Universe!)

We are also dealing with a kitty who has been peeing outside of the box. The only good news in that department is that, having been to the vet to rule out a UTI, we discovered that she has some tiny crystals in her urine and this might actually be what is bothering her. Since this is our bitey cat, Rhurbarb, we assumed she was stressed. She and Willow still don't exactly get along and I know that there is some mutual bullying going on. Anyway, it's not EXACTLY good news to have discovered that she has crystals in her urine, but since shifting the cat food to a specially formulated kidney food and putting out several other spots of water, she does (at least according to our new web cam) seem to be using the box appropriately.

Unfortunately, it's a box we'd rather not have on our first floor as it is in a bathroom that is immediately outside of the dining room. Mason, reasonably, finds it especially gross because it's within feet of his usual chair. So, we are strategizing about other places that might work that wouldn't require a trip to the basement. When we thought this was psychological ONLY, we figured that Rhubarb might be nervous about getting trapped in the coal room, which is where we currently have all of our boxes. We have since positioned one in a more open space and, while watching that spot with the web cam, we did see just how hesitantly she tried that box out. She'd clearly rather not go to the basement to pee. Since the first floor only has the one bathroom, we're still cogitating. We are considering placing a small box on the landing of the stairs to the basement, but that's generally a tricky spot as it's where our sidedoor is and the stairs are already narrow--and are used for hauling laundry up and down. But, we aren't giving up. We're willing to try an fail until we find a solution.

And it's super encouraging that Rhubarb is already showing more willingness to go in ANY box, even if it's currently in a place we'd really rather not have one.

I also continue to learn about convention running through my work on the Gaylaxicon programming committee. It feels good to volunteer about something I care about, though I am, of course, worried that people won't go and that we'll have done all this for nothing, our GoHs will cry, etc., etc. I asked Bluesky why they go to conventions, if they still do. What's the draw? An award? A particular guest? Nearness? A particular activity (like gaming or crafting or cosplay)? How do you find out about conventions?

If you want to answer that question for me, too, I'd love to hear your answer.

Also, did you read anything good lately?