naath | Reading

minoanmiss posting in

agonyaunt

Content advisory in title. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: pessimistic

andrewducker

It would be awesome if I didn't have to have an argument with Gideon about bedtime every single night.

Sophia doesn't do that any more. I wonder at what age he'll grow out of it.

rachelmanija

Roman left the family business, a crematory, and its town to become an accountant to the rich and famous. His sister now runs the crematory with their father, while their younger brother Dante stays on the rolls but his actual profession is being a drug addict and ne'er do well. When the kids were teenagers, their mother vanished. Their father is widely suspected of having murdered his wife and cremated his body, but no proof was ever found. When the book opens, Roman hears that his father is in the hospital, victim of a suspicious accident. He heads home to visit his father and help out his sister. Naturally, he immediately gets embroiled in trouble.

I've loved or liked all of Cosby's previous books and was very excited for this one - especially given the crematory setting. (Cosby himself ran a funeral home with his wife.) Unfortunately, I did not like or feel connected to any of the characters in this one, and so I didn't care what happened to them. Cosby's characters are typically criminals who do bad things, but in his other books, I understand the reasons they are who they are and like them even if I wouldn't want to meet them in real life. But in this one, fairly early on, Roman - who I already didn't feel connected to - commits an act of horrifying cruelty that seems completely unmotivated.

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It's possible that this is explained later, and my guess is that the explanation is "Roman is actually a sadistic sociopath," but I lost all interest in him at that point, and DNF'd the book as I no longer wanted to read about him, none of the other characters interested me either, and the sadistic sociopath explanation doesn't help. I heard an interview with Cosby where he talks about wanting to write a classic tragedy with a very bad protagonist a la Macbeth, which makes his intention make more sense to me, but it doesn't make me want to return to the book.

Cosby is a great author but this book was a miss for me. I HIGHLY recommend Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears for very well-written books where bad people do bad things that are very motivated, and you can't help rooting for them to succeed. I recommend All Sinners Bleed for a well-written book about a good guy fighting both crime and legal bad things. I recommend My Darkest Prayer for a fun, OTT thriller with a very Marty Stu protagonist. I don't recommend this.

siderea

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1885137.html

Content Advisory: US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within.

[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]

Now, when looking at these strikes being carried out in the Caribbean, shockingly, I think there's not been a ton of coverage on this. CNN, for one, their Pentagon reporters, have been some of the only ones consistently covering what's happening in Venezuela. CNN and the New York Times right now, I would say, are the two that are kind of all over this and have been for a while. I don't know why it's getting so little coverage elsewhere, but it is. So, normally I would like to look at these, uh, these reports and source them from multiple different outlets and we just don't have that because there's so limited coverage around US military operations in SOUTHCOM right now.

— Preston Stewart [PrestonStewart on YT], 2025 Oct 15, "American Bombers Send A Message To Venezuela"

[...] I know that the people of the United States are attentive observers and the people of the United States are very aware of what is being attempted against Venezuela is armed aggression to impose regime change.

— Nicolás Maduro, 2025 Oct 3, via Times of India via AP via VTV, "Venezuela Deploys Army & Tanks After Another Deadly U.S Attack, Fighter Jet action"

I am still desperately trying to pull together Part 2 of this series, but in the meanwhile, more things keep happening. I keep checking in with my focus group, aka, Mr. Bostoniensis, about what he is seeing in the news, because my own algorithms are, uh, rather peculiarly trained at this point, and the answer seems "rock all", so I thought I'd post a news round-up of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks. (Holy crap it's been two weeks.)

October 2nd

( It comes out that the Trump administration has literalized the 'War on Drugs'. )

( US terminates diplomatic relations with Venezuela )

October 3rd

( Fourth US strike on a boat in Venezuelan waters is announced by Trump admin )

October 6th

( Venezuela announces it foiled a false-flag plot against the US Embassy in Venezuela )

October 8th

( Democrats in Senate try to limit Trump's war powers but fail )

October 9th

( The Venezuelan opposition leader wins the Nobel Peace prize )

( Venezuela requests emergency intervention from the UN Security Council )

( The US asks Grenada, 100 miles off Venezuela's coast, to allow US military installation )

October 10th

( The Nobel Peace Prize winner dedicates the prize to Trump, confusing a lot of people who haven't been keeping score )

( It comes out that Maduro had been trying to negotiate his way out of US demands for his outster by offering up 'a dominant stake in Venezuela's oil' )

( UN Security Council has emergency meeting per Venezuela's request )

October 13th

( Maduro closes Venezuela's embassies in Norway and Australia )

( Venezuelan activist and political consultant in exile in Colombia were shot )

October 14th

( US bombs fifth boat off Venezuela, six killed )

( US announces Admiral in charge of US SOUTHCOM visiting Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada )

Which brings us to today. (Well, it was today when I started writing this.)

October 15th

( Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela )

( Three US Air Force B-52 bombers buzzed Venezuela for four hours; Venezeula scrambles an F-16 in response )

( It comes out that the boat of Colombians bombed in September was not bombed by mistake, but was deliberate )

( Nobel Laureate Machado exhorts Trump to rescue Venezuela from Maduro )

( Trump is musing aloud to the press about airstrikes on Venezuela )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one
of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

rachelmanija

Yuletide signups are open!

Here's the tagset showing what's eligible to request and offer.

What intrigues you in the tag set? And who plans to participate this year?

rachelmanija

Thank you for writing for me! If you have any questions, please check with the mods. I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you write for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, story lengths, etc.

My AO3 name is Edonohana. I am open to treats. Very open. I love them.

This year I have gone for a slate of obscure-even-for-Yuletide canons plus a few less obscure canons with obscure-even-for-Yuletide characters. Some of my prompts are longer than others, but I want everything equally.

I like hurt-comfort, action/adventure, horror, domestic life, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, difficult choices, survival situations, mysterious places and weird alien technology, food, plants, animals, landscape, X-Men type powers, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, miniature things or beings, magic, strange rituals, unknowable things, epistolary fiction, found footage/art/creepy movies/etc, canon divergence AUs anf alternate versions of characters. I particularly love deadly/horrifying yet weirdly beautiful settings, especially if there's elements of space/time/reality warping as well. And many other things, too, of course! That list is just in case something sparks an idea.

( General DNWs )

( Crossroad - Barbara Hambly )

( Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin )

( Fire Dancer Series - Ann Maxwell )

( Ki and Vandien Quartet - Megan Lindholm )

( The Last Hot Time - John M. Ford )

( Lyra - Patricia Wrede )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

1. Hi, Carolyn: I grew up in a very image-conscious family. I’ve always been “bigger,” which bothered my parents a lot. They were always on my case to lose weight, although it wasn’t having health impacts and I don’t have issues with physical fitness. Now that Ozempic is a thing, they have been dropping hints about that, too. I’ve tried gently having conversations about how their comments are hurtful, but they — especially my mom — get hostile and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. (They aren’t great at emotional discussions.)

I love myself generally and think I’m a cool person. But I’m in my early 30s, and I’ve never been in a relationship. I really don’t get romantic attention. I’ve been on a handful of dates from apps. This is hard. I naturally wonder whether my weight is the problem. But I can’t bear the idea that my parents were right this whole time, and I don’t want to hear the inevitable I-told-you-so’s if I do end up trying Ozempic.

I know a reasoned conversation isn’t going to stop them. And I know internally it’s going to kill me if I lose weight and start getting more attention; were they right and I was really that ugly this entire time? I have no idea how to wrap my mind around this problem. I’ve had a string of really unhelpful therapists, generally saying, “You’re not ugly, but you need years of therapy to heal ALL your childhood trauma and then maybe you’ll be able to find a relationship!” and I need a break from that.

Do you have any advice?

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

2. Dear Carolyn: My sister and I had a really difficult childhood, but she definitely had it tougher than I did. For very good reasons, she severed all ties with our mom over 20 years ago, and, based on the way things happened, her daughters also chose to sever all ties with their grandmother.

My sister and I also were estranged for many years, but about six years ago, we rebuilt our relationship from the ground up and we are the best of friends now. That is, until Mom died a few weeks ago. My mom left her home and its contents to me. She was very clear on her wishes that I sell the home and split the money between my two children. It will be a significant amount of money. She left my sister a third of all remaining assets, which are minimal.

My sister is livid about the terms of the will, feeling like it was just another way to send her a message that she didn’t matter to our mom. I don’t know what Mom was thinking. If memory serves, she didn’t want to leave my sister entirely out of the will, but this has actually turned out to be worse.

This whole legal journey through probate is going to just keep taking my sister back to a past with ugly memories and lots of pain. How do I navigate this and keep my relationship with her? Do I reconsider how to allocate the money from the house to make things more fair — but go against my mom’s specific wishes?

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minoanmiss posting in

agonyaunt

A reader writes:
( Read more... )

Current Mood: pleased

andrewducker

1. The Commissioner for human rights for the Council of Europe warns that Britain's treatment of trans people could breach the ECHR: (tags:rights europe uk transgender lgbt )
2. Have you made the Ur-Ur error?: (tags:language history )
3. A human-faced stone from 12 thousand years ago was found in Karahan Tepe (Turkey): (tags:turkey archeology prehistory )
4. Afghanistan commando who served with British Army is deported to Taliban (because the Home Office failed to get paperwork done): (tags:Afghanistan UK military migration OhForFucksSake )
5. How UK recognising Palestine helped win Arab support for Trump's Gaza deal: (tags:UK Gaza Israel diplomacy )
6. Enzymes successfully converted a kidney to universal type O for transplant, marking a major step toward faster, more compatible organ donations.: (tags:organdonor technology GoodNews )
7. Waymo's Robotaxis Are Coming to London in 2026: (tags:taxis automation Technology london uk )
8. So far, in 2025, Britain has wasted more than £1Billion switching off wind turbines and paying gas plants to switch on.: (tags:waste electricity uk OhForFucksSake )

dewline

I did a "Portfolio Day" thing on Bluesky tonight.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home-for-now

kaberett

did eventually get myself out to the plot (after aborting the first attempt and going back to bed when I realised I'd made it almost to the main road without my bike helmet). successfully acquired More Saffron.
cooked a lot of beetroot, most of which I grew, for dinner -- one of the books I acquired from Oxfam just for interest, The Modern Vegetarian, has a "textures of beetroot": keftedes, tzatziki, a bulgur pilaf and a salad using the greens. I had a mix of colours, and the ombre gold-to-pink were very pretty in the salad. (and picking over the leaves very, very carefully yielded a tiny snail! who is now in the viv.)
I am continuing very slowly on the mend from the probably-a-cold from nearly a month ago: today I didn't get any active minutes walking up and down inside the house to hit step goal.
the post brought Fancy Chocolate. even some of it is Fancy Chocolate in my preferred flavour of same!
I have somehow achieved having my accounts almost agree with reality about how much cash is in my wallet! and I think I've found the remains of at least one Missing Receipt in the back pocket of a set of trousers, which does at least provide an explanation. it is very satisfying when I actually manage this.

rachelmanija

This is an outstanding work of narrative nonfiction about the sinking of the merchant marine ship El Faro, with no survivors, on October 1, 2015. As far as anyone could tell initially, the captain inexplicably sailed the ship straight into the eye of Hurricane Joaquin, which he definitely knew was there.

Then the black box got retrieved. It had the complete audio recordings of everything that happened on the ship for 26 hours before it sank, right up to its final moments. Rachel Slade, a journalist, used the complete audio plus in-depth interviews with everyone who could possibly have any light to shed on the matter to write the book. She not only gives an analysis of what happened and why, she covers all the surrounding circumstances that led to it. It's an outstanding work of nonfiction disaster reporting that often reads like a suspense novel, it will teach you a lot about many things, and it will make you very angry.

The culprit, essentially, was capitalism. A company called TOTE took over the original company that owned the ship and put a business bro who knew nothing about shipping in charge. He fired a bunch of people at random on the theory that there were too many employees, and slashed maintenance because it was expensive. Everyone who was experienced, skilled, and not desperate who hadn't already been fired quit, leaving only people who were inexperienced, unskilled, undesirable for other reasons, desperate, or in low-level positions where they had no influence on general operations, on a ship in serious need of repairs and upgrades. TOTE put enormous pressure on the captain to get the ship to its destination on time, no matter what, to save money. Finally, there were multiple sources for weather reports, the one which was most current was more complicated to use, and not everyone understood that the other source could be nine hours behind.

The captain had been investigated for sexual harassment, had a history of poor judgment calls, and had the social skills of Captain Ahab; because of this, he knew he was on thin ice and if he got fired from the El Faro, he might not get another job as captain. The second mate was a young woman trying to make it in a men's world who had reported him for harassing her, and dealt by avoiding him as much as possible. The entire crew was operating under a system where the captain was basically God. The only way to contact the outside world, like if for instance a crew member wanted to report that the captain was set on sailing them into a hurricane, was a satellite phone that only the captain had access to.

Basically everyone but the captain was worried they'd sail into the hurricane, the captain was worried he'd get fired if he took the long way around to avoid the hurricane and didn't realize that his weather reports were not up to date, everyone was tiptoeing around or avoiding the captain because he was a giant asshole who was also the God-King, and no one had any way to overrule or go around him.

The culture of "never question the captain even if he's obviously wrong" has caused a number of plane crashes, and the aviation world responded by instituting a system of training to teach crew members to speak up forcefully if they think the captain is making a mistake, complete with exactly how to phrase it. If you're interested in this, it's called Cockpit/Crew Resource Management (CRM); the podcast "Black Box Down" has a number of episodes involving it.

CRM would have been helpful for the El Faro, as would giving the crew private access to the satellite phone or some other way of reporting on the captain. And, of course, so would not allowing companies to put workers in extremely unsafe conditions. Regulations are written in blood. Worse, the blood can spill and nothing gets written at all.

An excellent book. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in disasters, survival, or the failure mode of capitalism.

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have now been to three weddings where I found out that the couple was already married, and just going through the motions.

The first was a couple who had gotten legally married weeks prior to the wedding so he could go on her health insurance.

The second was an older couple who said they’d never had a “real wedding.” That made me think they hadn’t really been married all along, but it turns out they had been; they just hadn’t had the kind of event they’d wanted.

The last one, which sent me over the brink, was our college friends. Since our larger friend group is now spread out in different cities, this couple traveled around, repeating the wedding ceremony to “save people the expense of traveling.”

My mother asks me why I care if people want to make fools of themselves, and why I can’t just “be nice” and celebrate with my friends. The answer is because I’m expected to go along with this farce and play the Wedding Guest: dressing up, sitting through it all, congratulating them, and -- here’s the main part -- spending serious money to buy them something from their registry list.

In fact, I’m expected to do all of the above many times over, if I go to their pre-wedding (but post-marriage!) parties, which I try to avoid. Am I right or wrong?

( Read more... )

andrewducker

Today I spent £108 on getting myself vaccinated against Flu and Covid.

Which led me to wonder what the cost of days off is to the economy. And how far off we are from it being worth the government vaccinating everyone.

rachelmanija

This book contains several elements which I like very much: it's epistolatory, it has mysterious ancient sophisticated machinery, and it involves very big size differences. I love miniature things and people, but I also love giants and giant things. This novel is entirely in the form of interviews, and it begins with a young girl walking in the woods who falls into a sinkhole, and lands in the palm of a GIANT HAND. (I can't believe that image isn't on the cover, because it's so striking and is also by far the best part of the book.) The gigantic hand is metal, and it turns out that there are pieces of a complete ancient giant robot scattered all over the world! What happens when the whole giant robot is assembled?

It turns out that what happens is yet another example of a great idea making a bad book, largely - AGAIN - by failing to engage with the premise! WHY IS THIS SO COMMON????

To be fair, this book has many bad elements which do not involve failing to lean into its premise.

The entire book consists of interviews by an unnamed, very mysterious person with near-infinite money and power. He is hiring people to locate the robot parts, assemble them, and pilot it. He also conducts personal interviews with them in which he pries into their love lives in a bizarrely personal manner. It's clearly because the author wanted to have a love story (he shouldn't have, it's terrible) and figured this was the only way to do it and keep the format, but it makes no sense. The interviewers do object to this line of questioning, but not in the way that I kept wanting them to, which would have been along the lines of "Don't you have anything better to do than get wank material from your employees? Drop it, or I'll go to HR."

The girl who fell into the hand grows up to be a physicist who gets hired to... I forget what exactly, but it didn't make much sense even when I was reading it. Anyway, she's on the project. There's also a badass female helicopter pilot, and a male linguist to translate the mysterious giant robot inscriptions. All these people are the biggest geniuses ever but are also total idiots. All the women are incredibly "man writing women."

Most annoyingly, the robot does not seem to be sentient, does not communicate, does not have a personality, and only walks for like 30 seconds once.

Spoilers! ( Read more... )

I feel stupider for having read this book.

It's a trilogy but even people who liked the first book say the returns steadily diminish.

I normally don't think it's cool to criticize people's appearances, but in this case, this dude chose to go with this supremely tryhard author photo.

andrewducker

1. Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents: (tags:Wikipedia fraud memetics )
2. Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport: (tags:transport cycling )
3. The UK Supreme Court is quietly editing the Human Rights Act out of existence (and has been for years): (tags:UK rights law OhForFucksSake )

kaberett

Reading. ( Brosh, Woodin, Saunders, Stocks, Duncan )

Watching. Another Farscape, while bleaching A this morning. ( Read more... )

Playing. The Tukoni: Forest Keepers demo. Once again a very soothing delight: potter gently about making other forest creatures happy, in a setting of gorgeous art. Exactly what our frazzled nerves needed.

Quite a bit of Fluxx.

Cooking. A butternut squash and quince stew with pipián, courtesy of the Wahaca cookbook.

Eating. A picnic of misc takeaway from Hammersmith station complex on Saturday afternoon! Ben's Cookies! Strawberries! Pizza Express this evening because No!

Exploring. The Autumn London Pen Show, where I spent only the planned amount of money on the planned thing and was delighted with the outcome. :) Little bit of a poke around Hammersmith followed by the Westfield centre thereafter.

Growing. Spinach! So much spinach! I am starting to harvest it. I am very pleased by this. And of course SAFFRON of which there has been LOTS (i.e. I might have enough home-grown saffron to make one or possibly two recipes, which is vastly more than I've ever had before and Extremely Exciting).

Observing. The bat! Possibly even two of them this evening, definitely not gone to sleep yet.

dewline

Magnitudo per crudelitatem.

kaberett

Went to the Autumn London Pen Show! Got the Lamy 2000 EF nib ground down to a needlepoint by Thomas Ang! Did not properly notice until settling in to play with it properly that it's got this amazing slightly stubbish character to it! And he also tweaked my Platinum UEF nib to be slightly less Horrendously Dry (which had somehow not occurred to me as a solution), and... having now settled down for a bit more writing for the evening, I think I might actually really like having two UEF/needlepoint nibs to use different colours of ink in.

The idea was to reduce the number of pens in regular use by dint of retiring the Platinum, not increase it. Oh no.

Some other things! The Rudi Rother Pelikan is even prettier in person; I still do not get the appeal of Leonardos (though to be fair I think my sense of their general appeal is massively skewed by That One Very Active Person who thinks they're The Most Beautiful Pens In All The World); the Visconti Van Gogh series do not impress me any more in person than they do in photographs; next time I can justify buying another TN insert The Inked Paw are delightful and we had an excellent chat and Trying Each Other's Pens while I was in Thomas Ang's queue (and they slightly discombobulated me by asking me if I had an Instagram when I flipped through my notebook to show what I use the UEF for...)

... yeah no I am just absolutely delighted by this ridiculous pen, EXCELLENT outing + date activity, Ben's Cookies also successfully acquired, Very Happy.

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

I’m an H.I.V.-positive gay man who is distraught with where the country is headed, so I am actively participating in protests. I have a liberal friend who lives in an overwhelmingly Trump-supporting small town and is married to a Trump supporter. She messages me often about her fears of what is going on and seems equally distraught. I’ve shared with her how current politics could affect my life and how, although I’m very aware of my privilege, I’m concerned about people who aren’t as privileged and how they could be affected. But she doesn’t participate in protests and doesn’t like to actively show her views except on social media. There are protests in small towns close to her that could use her support. Once, there was a B.L.M. protest in her town, but she had ceiling fans being installed. She passed on another recent protest because she had a birthday party. She has never participated and I’m getting increasingly annoyed. I think it’s important to show up. I also know that everyone is different, so I’m trying to reconcile this. She comes off to me as someone who’s comfortable in her life and doesn’t want to shake anything up, which is the height of hypocrisy to me.

I feel like apathy is how we got here in the first place, and I’m really struggling with how and whether to keep people like this in my life. — Name Withheld

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andrewducker

The children have located Christmas.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

kaberett

Another nine strands today. :)

a saffron crocus in flower, petals somewhat chewed

(Photo actually from Wednesday 8th, of the first one!)

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: I have been married to my husband for six years, together for eight. My husband has a kind, tender heart and knows how to bring me down to earth when I'm stressed. I love him very much, but I am becoming less attracted to him because of his lack of ambition. I'm a "chase your dreams," "work super hard and get what you want" kind of gal, so it's hard for me to sympathize with his lazy, careless lack of ambition.

If my husband has free time, he's either napping, playing video games or watching a movie. Never does he choose to do anything productive like learn something new, work out or start a side hustle. (And God knows we could use all the income we can get.) How can I share how I feel about this with him without causing a blowout fight or hurting his feelings? -- DISAPPOINTED IN IDAHO

( Read more... )

minoanmiss posting in

agonyaunt

When your coworker is your Uber driver

This happened to a coworker, not me, but now I’m paranoid it will. She told me that over the weekend she and her roommate got in an Uber to get to a bar, and the driver was our other coworker. I have nothing against side hustles/second jobs (I work one myself, as a bartender at a theater), but of all the people we work with (we’re standard office workers at a large employer in our city) I would not have expected this specific person to take up Uber driving for extra cash.

So, WWYD? My coworker said she was pretty silent the entire time but did acknowledge/greet our coworker/driver. I wouldn’t know how to act, especially if I was coming home after a night out and not sober, or with a date, or just having a bad day.

This doesn’t need to be a big deal! You’d treat the coworker like you would if the driver were anyone else you knew — meaning, greet them warmly, ask how they’re doing, and, if you’re up to it, make pleasant conversation during the drive. It’s no different than your own second job, or than if you ran into them on, say, a subway. I know the power dynamics might feel a little weird — you are now paying them to provide you with a service — but treat it like you would any other unexpected public encounter with someone you know from work, and it doesn’t need to be awkward at all.

If you weren’t in a frame of mind where you could easily carry on a warm conversation (whether from a bad day or whatever else), you could say, “I hope you don’t mind, I’m exhausted and was planning to just rest my eyes during the drive.” That’s probably a good strategy if you aren’t sober as well, to avoid lowered inhibitions leading you to say anything you normally wouldn’t.

Current Mood: confused

andrewducker

My mum had a heart attack yesterday afternoon, followed by an angioplasty.

She was sitting up in bed and drinking coffee by 9pm last night, and seems to be fine now. They're keeping her in until Monday to make sure, but panic over.

Turns out that an angioplasty is nowadays an outpatient operation under local anaesthetic, with over 97% success rate. Modern medicine is awesome. And thank fuck for the NHS!

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: My brother "Joey" married a woman, "Allie," who is mentally unstable. Every couple of months, she loses her temper at me or one of my family members. It's extremely disruptive and upsetting. She has been diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder as well as borderline personality disorder. Joey recognizes her behavior is inappropriate but can't seem to control her.

We usually ignore her and let some time pass until she calms down, but sometimes it's hard to turn the other cheek when she yells and makes personal attacks toward us. The most recent blow-up occurred while they were visiting my parents' home. Allie is pregnant with their first baby, and the day after the visit, Allie called my mom yelling at her that their house is "toxic" due to clutter and dust. She said being in their home is "harming their unborn baby." My parents' house is NOT a health hazard. Yes, there is some clutter, but they've raised five kids in that house and have lived there for almost 40 years.

Is there any way we can have a meaningful relationship with Joey and Allie? I'm worried they're never going to let us see their baby. -- TIPTOEING IN CALIFORNIA

( Read more... )

kaberett

You know the way I just said -- I just said -- that I had worked out how to make wagamama's current menu yield something I was actively enthusiastic about eating?

WELL GUESS WHAT. THIRD TIME UNLUCKY.

I had really not expected the pad thai to vanish in a menu overhaul, okay, what on EARTH.

(So we came home and ate butternut squash & quince stew instead, and maybe by the next time it is Ritual Wagamama O'Clock I'll have resigned myself to eating something that isn't The Thing I Just Worked Out.)

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

I have a 26-year-old daughter who from a very early age studied dance. For a while, we thought she might pursue it professionally, but by the time she was applying for colleges it was clear that she had decided not to. Once she made that decision, she stopped taking dance classes. We were disappointed — she was a beautiful dancer — but we were supportive of her choice. She found a major she loved and is doing very well. We couldn’t be happier about that. I’ve noticed, however, that since she stopped dancing she has steadily gained weight. Lately, every time her dad and I see her, she has put on more weight.

We want to have a conversation with her about it, but we’re concerned that she will think that we’re body-shaming her. She can get defensive about things. I am particularly concerned about the things she loves to eat. She gravitates toward sugar and fatty foods, and isn’t very active. We have lots of diabetes on both sides of our family, and I’ve subtly tried to mention this family risk. I don’t think she has taken this in, however. She may be headed for a serious weight problem. How can we raise this with her without making her feel self-conscious or judged, and without pushing her away from us? We love and respect her and want to see her live a healthy life. Please advise! — Name Withheld

( Read more... )

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were originally suggested by

angelicid.

Name five…

1. ... things you can't live without.

2. ... of the best moments in your life.

3. ... celebrities you can't stand.

4. ... books you enjoy(ed) reading.

5. ... items in your purse/backpack/on your desk.

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

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andrewducker

1. How to weigh an octopus in only 8 wriggly steps: (tags:octopus weight video )

kaberett

In My Ridiculous Pen Collection, I have a Lamy 2000 (largely inspired by Ant Newman of UKFountainPens waxing lyrical). I got it second hand, as with all but one of my pens; the one that showed up cheap came with an F nib.

( Read more... )

kaberett

This morning I had Physio at The Hospital Up The Road, which is a really good way to get me to actually go to the allotment (which is round the back of the hospital site, so the way this usually goes is I cycle to the allotment, drop my bike off, and then cut through to the opposite side of the site where Physio Happens, thereby not needing to faff about with bike locks).

Upon my return from physio (which was not... great; I got probably-a-cold two and a half weeks ago and my cardiovascular-respiratory situation is still Distinctly Not Happy) I actually paid slightly closer attention to my saffron bed -- the last couple of trips I've been all "ugh, nothing doing, I should really weed but UGH clearly the saffron has all DIED yes I KNOW that this is the traditional time of year for me to be convinced that The Saffron Has Died only to discover--" and indeed not only were there multiple clumps of saffron, most of them have flowers that are clearly going to happen Any Moment Now.

So today I have come home with six saffron strands, and am expecting A Bunch More, and have reinspected the saffron containers on the patio and established that one of those has them starting to come up as well -- and so now, obviously, I need to work out what to do with the RIDICULOUS RICHES represented by... maybe like two dozen strands of saffron. (Yes I also have a stash of shop-bought.)

Saffron & bay custard tarts with sticky blackberries? More saffron and cardamom panettone pudding (which we know we like)? Saffron rice pudding? All the saffron recipes from Sweet, which is possibly going to be my next cook-(almost)-all-the-way-through project? Lebovitz's saffron ice cream, to go with the planned quince sorbet? Saffron buns? Literally any of the obvious savoury options??? SO MUCH CHOICE.

andrewducker

I think it might be autumn.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

kaberett

Reading. So many things. Or at least it feels that way. Unsure if actually So Many.

( Melzack & Wall, McRobbie, McGuire, Duncan, Stock )

( Cookbooks )

And I am now TWO months behind on Dreamwidth. TWO. Ahahahaha.

Playing. Several more rounds of Fluxx.

Tukoni: Prologue, "a point-and-click puzzle adventure" featuring beautiful botanical art. Very very much enjoyed this tiny snippet (a mushroom! that makes it rain! when you pat it!) and am mildly dismayed at the five-year gap between the release of this prologue and the subsequent demo of what will theoretically be a full game...

Cooking. ALSO SO MANY THINGS.

another recipe from East: chilli tofu
green beans in tomato sauce with fennel seeds, feta, and toast, loosely inspired by a thing out of the latest Ottolenghi cookbook (in the sense that I went looking for confirmation of my sense that the thing I was thinking of doing would work, found it, and promptly carried on with my intentions rather than the recipe I was distinctly less into)
smitten kitchen's vegetarian cassoulet, with the addition of Dubious Protein Chunks
a quince cake, which I made a lot of modifications to, and of which I am dubious, probably because of those modifications (but A seems to like it, so that's a win)
hazelnut and treacle Welsh cakes, leaving us with two remaining recipes of any interest in the tourist-tat Welsh cakes cookbook (cranberry + white chocolate is a no, as are the two recipes containing bacon; double choc chip is a maybe, and I'm willing to consider that Caerphilly + leek might have merits but A is distinctly more dubious)
soda bread! notable because (i) not sourdough, (ii) using the buttermilk culture I have successfully kept alive this time around (and have now refreshed), and (iii) I ignored all of the instructions about Handling It As Little As Possible and as a result it achieved Structural Integrity, which I usually do... not manage

Eating. I have successfully worked out how to make Wagamama's current menu provide me with food I will actually look forward to, which is A Great Victory. Located the last of last year's seasonal Dark Chocolate With Raspberry and have been gently nibbling it. QUINCE. And another variety of apple from an abandoned neighbouring plot at the allotment; this one is Very Crunchy and Very Red but not particularly flavours.

(The tree that got planted so as to encroach on my plot is some kind of cooker, unsure which, because my usual approach to cooking apples is James Grieve from my mother's garden...)

Making & mending. I think that, inspired by some helpful answers on reddit, I have got my clicky fountain pen clicking reliably again? It was doing a thing where it wouldn't lock, and it was pointed out to me that probably the issue was going to be located in the knock not at the trap door, so I... wrote the pen dry, rinsed out the ACCUMULATED DUST OF THE YEARS (THANKS DADFORD ROAD), and since then it's been behaving beautifully. Long may it continue.

Growing. There are still tomatoes? Also kohlrabi. I only managed a single flying visit to the plot this week; at some point soonish I'm going to need to get A to take me over with the car so I can retrieve from the greenhouse the various peppers I'm hoping to overwinter. I do not appear to have been issued with a Non-Cultivation Order in this round of inspections, which is a very welcome surprise!

Observing. A has seen the bat! I have not seen the bat because I have been Preoccupied with Other Things (misc). But the bat has not yet put itself to bed for the winter. <3

rmc28

Term is starting, and I'm aiming to play for one of the university ice hockey teams this season (yes alongside Kodiaks 2), and there was a taster session aimed at postgraduate students on Friday evening, with a 90 minute break between it and my usual late-Friday-night Warbirds training. So Friday evening I worked a little late while waiting for the worst of the rain to pass over Cambridge, then cycled home to get my gear and over to the rink to help out with the taster session. All the roads and cycle paths had a lot of litter of leaves and small twigs from the blustery day.

( ice hockey, vaccinations, more ice hockey )

Today has been my first "nothing actually scheduled" day in weeks, months even. I have been enjoying doing very little apart from reading and spending too long scrolling Instagram. While I did enjoy the many many videos about Kpop Demon Hunters / ice hockey / women's football & rugby that I watched today, I finally decided to turn on the iPad's screen time restriction for the Instagram app to cut down on the time wasted that way in future. The machines are better at distracting me than I am at having willpower, so the machines can cut me off too.

liv

Content note: mentions antisemitic murders and police violence. I personally am completely safe, I'm only talking about dealing with news.

It's around midday Yom Kippur. I'm leading the morning service with a tiny community in the southwest corner of England. There's a slight hiatus as this congregation only have two Torah scrolls, so we have to roll through from the first reading in Exodus to the second reading in Leviticus, saving the second scroll for the afternoon reading from Deuteronomy. (In this community, like most of the Progressive world, our second reading is Leviticus 19, not the verses that are sometimes used as clobber texts to support homophobia.) While there's milling about, the volunteers running the tech for Zoom approach me at the bimah and let me know that there has been an attack in a synagogue in Manchester.

( reactions ) Also, I am deeply grateful for the kind people who checked in with me personally when they heard the news, and for all the leaders, Muslim, Christian and civic, who sent messages of support to the Jewish community and continue to be in solidarity with us.

Current Mood: scared
Current Music: Avinu Malkenu

andrewducker

Just had to ask what was going on.

Sophia told me "There's a spider in the bathroom"
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

enismirdal

I think there needs to be more awareness that "quite" is used...well, quite differently in UK versus US English.

In UK English it normally means "somewhat", "fairly", "moderately". Someone who is "quite tall" might be 6 foot 1 but probably not nearly 7 foot tall. A sports team that is "quite good" probably gets slightly above average scores and win rates within their league but also probably isn't the champion every year. A town that is "quite small" is not tiny, but is also probably not worth visiting without a compelling reason!

Apparently in US English it means more like, "very". I only really started to appreciate it this when I was learning Spanish some years back, and the person teaching it at the time was from South America (so had originally learned American English). I asked her how to say that the town I lived in was "quite small" (see above - the place I lived in at the time had a medium sized Tesco and some restaurants, a furniture store and a good rail service; it wasn't the arse end of beyond), and she gave me the word "bastante". I obediently used it in my written work but then looked it up later and found that it means "really a lot" or something like that, i.e. I'd written that essentially my town was tiny.

I don't think the problem was her language competence. I think it was literally that she had a different understanding of "quite", derived from US usage.

I've read about this since, and I think at one point I saw the results of a survey that basically asked US and UK English speakers to try and ascribe numerical values to adverbs like "quite", "very", "exceptionally", and this was the major one where the two ratings diverged very noticeably.

I can imagine this has caused quite a few interesting misunderstandings across the Atlantic in the past... (Probably further not helped when a UK English user says something like, "That's really quite good," as a very British understated compliment.) I do wonder if there have been occasions in the past where I've got the wrong end of a stick talking to an American where I misunderstood their level of enthusiasm due to our interpretations of the word "quite".

Current Mood: thoughtful

andrewducker

1. OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3b in income, $13.5b in loss: (tags:ai business doom )
2. Features of autism can affect age of diagnosis — and so can genes: (tags:genetics autism age )
3. UK plummets down rankings for LGBTQ+ rights (from 1st place a decade ago to 22nd place today): (tags:uk bigotry rights lgbt OhForFucksSake )

rmc28

Books on pre-order:

Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)
Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) by Martha Wells (5 May 2025)

Books acquired in September:

and read:
1. The Rose & The Dagger (Wrath and the Dawn 2) by Renée Ahdieh
2. Breakaway (Portland Storm 1) by Catherine Gayle
3. The Claiming of the Shrew (Fated Mountain Lodge) by Lauren Esker
and unread:
1. The Element of Fire by Martha Wells
2. The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
3. City of Bones by Martha Wells
4. Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells
5. Emilie and the Sky World by Martha Wells
6. Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells
7. Surviving the Storms - RNLI [3]

Books acquired previously and read in September:

The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh [3][May]
Kidnap on the California Comet by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman [3][May][DNF]
Betrayal (Trinity 1) by Fiona McIntosh [3][May][DNF]

Rereads in September:

Slippery Creatures (Will Darling Adventures 1) by KJ Charles
The Sugared Game (Will Darling Adventures 2) by KJ Charles
Subtle Blood (Will Darling Adventures 3) by KJ Charles

I started off strong in September, clearing some of the books from earlier in the year, reading new books, and even a reread of some old favourites. And then the ice hockey season got under way. I'm actually part way through both the RNLI paperback (bought at Bembridge RNLI on the Isle of Wight) and the first of the batch of Martha Wells books from the HumbleBundle but progress is slow when I'm busy.

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were originally suggested by

ardnaid.

1. Do you ever wonder if the way you see things visually aren't how other people see them?

2. What kind of sounds are the most annoying?

3. When walking through a store, do you shop with your hands by touching/feeling the texture of things?

4. If you could only smell three scents for the rest of your life, what would they be?

5. What sorts of things do you savor when eating them?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

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