![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Birdfeeding
Jun. 19th, 2025 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithToday is partly sunny and mild. It rained yesterday.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
.
Wildlife
Jun. 19th, 2025 01:16 pmysabetwordsmithNew butterfly species wows scientists: 'This discovery reveals a lineage shaped by 40,000 years of evolutionary solitude'
The Satyrium semiluna, or half-moon hairstreak, is a small gray butterfly that looks like a moth at first glance. The wildflower lovers are widespread across North America, from the Sagebrush steppe to the montane meadows of the Rocky Mountains.
But tucked away in the southeastern corner of Alberta, Canada, another colony of butterflies flaps across the Blakiston Fan landform of Waterton Lakes National Park.
Until now, they were thought to be a subpopulation of half-moon hairstreaks — until scientists made a phenomenal discovery: They were a new species of butterfly that had hidden in plain sight for centuries.
The researchers, who recently published their findings in the scientific journal ZooKeys, defined the new species as Satyrium curiosolus.
The Satyrium semiluna, or half-moon hairstreak, is a small gray butterfly that looks like a moth at first glance. The wildflower lovers are widespread across North America, from the Sagebrush steppe to the montane meadows of the Rocky Mountains.
But tucked away in the southeastern corner of Alberta, Canada, another colony of butterflies flaps across the Blakiston Fan landform of Waterton Lakes National Park.
Until now, they were thought to be a subpopulation of half-moon hairstreaks — until scientists made a phenomenal discovery: They were a new species of butterfly that had hidden in plain sight for centuries.
The researchers, who recently published their findings in the scientific journal ZooKeys, defined the new species as Satyrium curiosolus.
Juneteenth 2025
Jun. 19th, 2025 07:35 amlauradi7dwhttps://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/moments/juneteenth
The Concept2 company (as mentioned many times) does many challenges throughout the year, some of them just for motivation, some including fund raising. For Juneteenth one has to row 1900 meters on the 19th. A fun thing about being part of an activity that is done world-wide is that there are more than 24 hours per calendar date, due to time zones and a date line. Before I went to bed last night there were already people on the challenge completed list. It was the 18th here, but it was already the 19th in lots of places which definitionally don't have a Juneteenth holiday and many people had finished.
added:
Originally from the TV show Blackish, featuring the Roots
The Day in Spikedluv (Wednesday, June 18)
Jun. 19th, 2025 07:33 amspikedluvHaving visiting hours not start until 11am has really helped with being able to get stuff done before I go out.
I had a chiropractic appointment this morning. I didn’t do any shopping, but I did get in a longer walk around the park. I did a load of laundry, a load in the dishwasher, the usual amount of hand-washing dishes, and scooped kitty litter. I read more (currently one of the Duncan Kincaid books).
Temps started out at 66.7(F) and reached 83.8. It was overcast with some sprinkles in the morning, then the sun came out in the afternoon. It was so humid! For the first time since it was hot back in May we had to use the AC in the bedroom.
Mom Update:
Mom was still doing well, but she was more tired today. She’d had some issues, one of which may have contributed to her being so tired.
( more back here )
I had a chiropractic appointment this morning. I didn’t do any shopping, but I did get in a longer walk around the park. I did a load of laundry, a load in the dishwasher, the usual amount of hand-washing dishes, and scooped kitty litter. I read more (currently one of the Duncan Kincaid books).
Temps started out at 66.7(F) and reached 83.8. It was overcast with some sprinkles in the morning, then the sun came out in the afternoon. It was so humid! For the first time since it was hot back in May we had to use the AC in the bedroom.
Mom Update:
Mom was still doing well, but she was more tired today. She’d had some issues, one of which may have contributed to her being so tired.
( more back here )Thankful Thursday
Jun. 19th, 2025 11:42 ammdlbearToday I am thankful for...
- My keyboard arriving last Friday without any problems. NO thanks to FedEx, which has failed to deliver m's keyboard to their home in Seattle. Twice.
- Remembering a very little bit of how to sight-read.
- Finally solving my audio input problem. NO thanks to Zoom and Audacity, which fail in entirely orthogonal ways to sanely handle my UA-25.
- Thanks to them, however, for at least allowing the system default as a device. Differently, of course.
- Linux command-line tools, including (but not limited to) Grep, Find,
Ls, Sed, and of course Bash, for always being there when I need to do
some trivial but off-the-wall bit of data-mining. Like listing all Thankful Thursday
posts with fewer than four list items.
$ for f in ../2*/*/*thank*; do echo $(grep "li>" $f | wc -l) $f; done |grep ^[2-3] 3 ../2019/09/12--thankful-thursday.html 3 ../2020/06/05--thankful-friday.html 3 ../2020/06/25--thankful-thursday.html 3 ../2021/04/25--thankful-sunday.html 3 ../2022/02/24--thankful-thursday.html 2 ../2025/01/03--thankful-thursday-addendum.html 2 ../2025/06/12--thankful-thursday.html
NO thanks to 2025!me for continued procrastination., and NO thanks to 2022!me, for letting the MakeStuff/music toolchain languish with no maintenance and inadequate documentation, making it way harder than necessary to put a two-song concert set online. Which might get done this week.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Jun. 18th, 2025 11:32 pmsholiohelen_keeble recommended this LitRPG series, and I am having a GREAT time, although I'm only about 80% of the way through the first book (but honestly I don't expect my opinion to change a whole lot; it might really surprise me later, but this strikes me as a series where what you see is basically what you get). But what you get is really a lot of fun - light, entertaining, very funny, with a lot more humanity and a darker edge than I was expecting. Also, it's a good Baby's First LitRPG (a genre I've bounced off repeatedly in the past) because there's a solid in-universe explanation for the stats, leveling, and other aspects of the genre.
Basically, Earth is now an alien reality game show.
In one moment, the vast majority of Earth's population is exterminated (everyone who was indoors or inside a vehicle or other contained space - they're all recycled by an alien resource development company, along with just about every other human-made thing on the planet). Everyone else finds themselves plunged into a world-sized dungeon with nothing but whatever they happen to be wearing at the time, where they must compete against an escalating series of challenges, televised for a galactic audience and run by a psychotic AI with a foot fetish and a ruthless alien corporation. The hero - Carl - was outside in a freezing night in order to rescue his ex-girlfriend's pedigreed Persian cat Princess Donut from a tree. Now he's in a dungeon, forced to compete against all too real enemies as well as fellow contestants, with a mind-controlled virtual pop-up display giving him descriptions of his and his opponents' stats, and a virtually unlimited inventory space. Princess Donut almost immediately gains a level-up bonus to human-level intelligence and becomes Carl's partner in the dungeon crawl, a squishy mage with sky-high Charisma next to Carl's tank. Who knew all that time playing first-person shooter games with no company except his cat was going to pay off ...
( More about the book (no big spoilers )More tiny excitements
Jun. 18th, 2025 09:31 pmazurelunatic* Shelves are fairly well stuffed. The other brackets have arrived, so we can go get more boards and tiny hardware at our convenience.
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial atthe_comfortable_courtesan!!!
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial at
the_comfortable_courtesan!!!In Maine
Jun. 18th, 2025 10:56 pmsilver_chipmunkGot up at 6:00 this morning, showered, and dressed, then had breakfast. Then we packed the car again and Dani and Winnie and I headed to pick up mashfanficchick at the train station.
Then we headed to Maine. It was a long drive but we got to the motel here in Old Orchard Beach. We checked in and then we went down to the beach for awhile.
After we came back from the beach we went to the boardwalk, to the amusement park.mashfanficchick and I had dinner at a seafood restaurant called the Shack, while Dani and Winnie went to the amusement park.
We stayed there for hours, thoughmashfanficchick and I only went on two rides, right at the end, the carousel and the Ferris wheel. We spent a long time in the arcade.
Came back to the motel eventually, and Teamed the FWiB. And now it's time for bed.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2. MY friends.
3. The beach.
4. Bed soon.
5. Good fried scallop dinner.
6. The two rides I took.
mashfanficchick at the train station.Then we headed to Maine. It was a long drive but we got to the motel here in Old Orchard Beach. We checked in and then we went down to the beach for awhile.
After we came back from the beach we went to the boardwalk, to the amusement park.
mashfanficchick and I had dinner at a seafood restaurant called the Shack, while Dani and Winnie went to the amusement park.We stayed there for hours, though
mashfanficchick and I only went on two rides, right at the end, the carousel and the Ferris wheel. We spent a long time in the arcade.Came back to the motel eventually, and Teamed the FWiB. And now it's time for bed.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2. MY friends.
3. The beach.
4. Bed soon.
5. Good fried scallop dinner.
6. The two rides I took.
Birdfeeding
Jun. 18th, 2025 08:57 pmysabetwordsmithToday was warm and muggy. It stormed midday, then cleared up somewhat later.
I fed the birds.
I put out water for the birds.
At dusk, loads of fireflies are coming out. :D I've seen at least one bat too.
I fed the birds.
I put out water for the birds.
At dusk, loads of fireflies are coming out. :D I've seen at least one bat too.
time marches on, time standing still
Jun. 18th, 2025 05:24 pmjazzfishI'm ... approaching done with coursework? I just turned in the practicum report and timesheet. Left to do: finish and polish a groupwork report (due tomorrow); record a five-minute presentation that someone else will stitch together with the rest of the group's presentations (gonna try to get that done by end of Monday); final exam for final class (before end of day next Thursday). Oh, and submit my Application For Credential, I should do that tonight or tomorrow.
It feels a bit of a relief, and a bit of "what next?" and a lot of frustration at the state of the world / economy for having gotten worse since April 2023 when I decided to hide out for two years. It feels more like an Accomplishment than I expected it to, but not much like one. But then very little ever feels like an Accomplishment, except in deliberate retrospect.
Counseling last week and this has been a lot of deep diving into my inability/reluctance to be proud of things I've done. This is gonna require some retraining of my brain. I grew up inculcated with a firm belief that the standards were different for me. Doing something 'normal' is not worth mentioning (though failing to do it is deeply shameful), and doing something extraordinary is worth at most "i knew i could do that, i am Living Up To My Potential." The agon of the Gifted Child: you must do Great Things because you are Gifted; but because you are Gifted, anything you do is no more than what's Expected Of You and thus insufficiently Great.
A couple months back, on the death of Val Kilmer, a friend wrote "The most important moral lesson of Real Genius is that failing to live up to your gifted-kid potential is praxis." I appreciate this a great deal.
It feels a bit of a relief, and a bit of "what next?" and a lot of frustration at the state of the world / economy for having gotten worse since April 2023 when I decided to hide out for two years. It feels more like an Accomplishment than I expected it to, but not much like one. But then very little ever feels like an Accomplishment, except in deliberate retrospect.
Counseling last week and this has been a lot of deep diving into my inability/reluctance to be proud of things I've done. This is gonna require some retraining of my brain. I grew up inculcated with a firm belief that the standards were different for me. Doing something 'normal' is not worth mentioning (though failing to do it is deeply shameful), and doing something extraordinary is worth at most "i knew i could do that, i am Living Up To My Potential." The agon of the Gifted Child: you must do Great Things because you are Gifted; but because you are Gifted, anything you do is no more than what's Expected Of You and thus insufficiently Great.
A couple months back, on the death of Val Kilmer, a friend wrote "The most important moral lesson of Real Genius is that failing to live up to your gifted-kid potential is praxis." I appreciate this a great deal.
Still friendly enough to be in the same photo
Jun. 18th, 2025 06:57 pmlauradi7dw
Flo (and B) had twins yesterday. Arthur and I and B's parents were down the hall in the waiting room as it happened. I was surprised to learn that I did indeed feel compelled to pace a little bit, as one used to see in the movies. It didn't take long - due to their positions, it was a scheduled Caesarean section, very efficiently done. Over quickly, but recovering will take Flo quite a while - it is major abdominal surgery, after all. So far so good.
Farm share, week 2
Jun. 18th, 2025 06:16 pmmagid- 2 big bunches of broccolini
- 2 bunches of red radishes with their greens
- 2 bunches of Bright Lights Swiss chard
- 1 pound of garlic scapes
- 4 heads of lettuce (I chose a variety of colors and frillinesses)
- 1 pound of mixed salad greens (swapped for more scapes, because while they looked nice, head lettuce will last longer, plus the weekly email suggested this was the last of the scapes)
First thoughts: pickled or pureed garlic scapes. Lots of green salad (I said I’d bring salad for Shabbat lunch, so that’s at least two heads of lettuce there; I’ll need to get things to go with, in addition to the radishes). Possibly some open-faced sandwiches with lettuce tops. Sauted chard with scapes, lemon, and walnut. Possibly use some of the broccolini greens in lieu of kale for a kale salad. Sauted broccolini and radish greens with scapes with some kind of pasta or rice.
eta: I’d planned to bring a kale salad for Shabbat lunch, but we didn’t get kale. I went back to look at the email sent out on Sunday, and it was pretty far off what actually came: he predicted kale and baby bok choy, instead of the radishes and broccolini that came.
working on Juneteenth
Jun. 18th, 2025 04:39 pmmellowtiggerBack when I was working into the evening hours and on Thursdays, I volunteered to work on tomorrow's national holiday, June 19th. Later, I switched schedules to have Thursday/Friday as my "weekend". I was reminded today that I'm working tomorrow, which was a good thing because I completely forgot about this obligation.
Oopsie!
With only 1 day for recovery on Friday, next week will seem a long haul. Hopefully there will be a lot fewer calls tomorrow, but I have my doubts. No prior holiday has seemed like a "holiday" when I worked it. The day was always busier than usual because many fewer people were taking calls. It was more like half the ticket volume, with a lot fewer than half of the people available. The whole world is 24x7x365 now, so there's no such thing as "holiday" any more. Everybody expects service at all times.
Quotes from Ernestine, the phone operator, are not really a good model for behavior on the job. (Hence the humor of them.) Quotes from Lily Tomlin, however, are quite helpful.
PIP assessment
Jun. 18th, 2025 07:27 pmcosmolinguistI knew it'd be awful but the PIP assessment was really awful.
I've mostly had nice assessors in the past, which helps as much as anything can. But this one wasn't doing a good job of hiding her glee at her petty power over me. Mean-girl vibes.
When we told V we were having coffee and cake afterward, they expressed their approval and said they'd hoped I would be. I said I learned this from them the first time I had one of these fucking assessments and they went along with me: they had to buy me the cake after that because I was too poor to do it myself, so I remember it.
V replied: "They will not be allowed to take away our joy." Damn right.
Dear lord, no
Jun. 18th, 2025 11:31 amfabrisseI spent two days in Richmond earlier this month. My sister's friend, with whom we stayed, watched the local news which was a different perspective from Georgia.
There was one brief interview with someone who said (somewhat paraphrased), "We're looking for a test case. If we can find the right test case, we can get Loving overturned and back to the states." It took an age for my jaw to come off the floor.
Look, I knew we were working to keep Obergefell the law of the land. It happened a decade ago. Loving vs Virginia is from 1967. It's the one that overturned anti-miscegnation laws.
Now I was 6 years old and from a family so white that flashbulbs can give us sunburn, but, from the time I was old enough to understand laws, that anti-miscegnation crap was taught as history. (I'm somewhat relieved that Dreamwidth's spell checker doesn't recognize the word.) Don't think this was only in the South; a mixed race friend's parents had to travel from their home in New Jersey to Michigan to be allowed to marry. New Jersey would recognize marriages from other states under "full faith and credit" but wouldn't allow it there.
I have too many friends and acquaintances who could be harmed by these laws. When we protest for freedom to marry for everyone, remember that it's not just the LGBTQIA+ community who is at risk.
When I set my calendar this year, I could have sworn it was for 2025, not 1925.
There was one brief interview with someone who said (somewhat paraphrased), "We're looking for a test case. If we can find the right test case, we can get Loving overturned and back to the states." It took an age for my jaw to come off the floor.
Look, I knew we were working to keep Obergefell the law of the land. It happened a decade ago. Loving vs Virginia is from 1967. It's the one that overturned anti-miscegnation laws.
Now I was 6 years old and from a family so white that flashbulbs can give us sunburn, but, from the time I was old enough to understand laws, that anti-miscegnation crap was taught as history. (I'm somewhat relieved that Dreamwidth's spell checker doesn't recognize the word.) Don't think this was only in the South; a mixed race friend's parents had to travel from their home in New Jersey to Michigan to be allowed to marry. New Jersey would recognize marriages from other states under "full faith and credit" but wouldn't allow it there.
I have too many friends and acquaintances who could be harmed by these laws. When we protest for freedom to marry for everyone, remember that it's not just the LGBTQIA+ community who is at risk.
When I set my calendar this year, I could have sworn it was for 2025, not 1925.
