spiffikins

I had to make a separate post.

When we were young we used to drive out to Oklahoma waiting until it was really hot so we could all enjoy the station wagon with no air conditioning all the way out and back. One of the places I always wanted to stop at was Stuckey's. My parents were smart enough not to stop there. Actually I don't think we stopped much of anywhere.

Today I made up a bit of that. We passed a Buc-ees and stopped. If you don't know, Buc-ees is a huge gas station with the best bathrooms anywhere and some of the nicest staff and stay that way 24 hours a day. You can walk into the 2 acre Buc-ees store at 3AM and be greeted by someone who will 'welcome to Buc-ees' all cheerie and stuff. That time of morning is special. We were there this morning but it was 11ish and not insane. But the people watching was a treat as always and the shelves were perfectly stocked, the food was hot and ready, and the bathrooms were immaculate. It is a finely tuned machine. I'm sorry I can't send you some Watermelon Cotton Candy but I can send you pictures:

The kitchiest wooden wavy placks I've ever seen just outside the bathroom. This one dimensional photo does not do them justice.

FOOD FOOD AND FOOD:

This is a picture standing in the center of the store looking one direction:

Same amount of room going the other way.

This is an entire wall of every kind of food you can think of. Across from this wall are rows on rows of shelves filled with chips and such. This wall has candy and jerky, and such.

And, of course they have T-shirts commerating the Buc-ees Nascar entry:

And who could go on their camping trip without a double burner, three basket, oil fryer. Turkey and fries!!!!

There is so much more. So much.

And the people who buy it all.

I used to drive up from San Diego to Venice Beach so I could sit on the sea wall, drink a beer, and watch the circus go by. Buc-ees reminds me of that. More clothes but similar people.

ravena_kade

Dad got the okay to drive. Started the car and the rear breaks were grinding...so let's add a break job to the list of bills.

Dad starts work Monday. He is pretty mad about being dropped to 20 hours especially since he was told that he didn't have to worry about being out.

He talked with the boss that is leaving and it turns out that she will stay on for 2 days a week, mostly for bookkeeping. She told Dad that they were getting an order for P-coats and that his expertise was needed since no one knows how to press them. They also asked him if he could pick up some patterns as the woman that makes their patterns lives around the block from us.

The visiting nurse likes him enough that she will continue to do blood draws for him, but switch to Friday afternoons when he is home from work. That is nice. They are not supposed to do that. I think it works out for her as well as she lives a few streets over from us so her last call is close to home.

Dad was outside mowing the lawn. He hasn't done that since 2022. He really shouldn't do it, but if he's strong enough Im not going to stop him.

Tomorrow Dad wants me to go into work with him so he can see if any changes have been made. He was told his key would still work. His old boss will be there.

He was told that they are having a pizza party for him on Wednesday. Not Monday since Ted boss isn't in on Monday. Dad isn't supposed to have pizza. Sigh. Typical.. Pizza doesn't pay the bills.

While I am not pleased with what is happening at his job I am happy that he will be getting out of the house. Being alone isn't great for him.

bill_schubert

So all is OK with the world. We could have come back same day but six hours in the car is a bit much. We're going to go back to the doc once a year like any cardiologist visit, just to check in and be sure nothing has changed. Now we know what we're doing it will be much easier and less stressful.

Dana has a condition that is not common but neither is it rare. It essentially makes her veins and arteries flexible which one might think is good but actually can result in weakness and potential issues if the pressure gets too high. So she needs to keep her blood pressure low, which she was already doing, and nothing that results in raising it locally. Her neck vessels, for instance, are prone to buldging so no downward dog kind of thing. Or neck massages, or cross body bags that might get caught on someone walking by and quickly pull at her neck. The vessel might tear.
Other than that nothing really changes. It is just that we know what is happening now and can monitor it. Nothing dramatic.

All in all a good outcome. The doc was very ADHD as am I so we clashed a bit but worked it out. She's a cardiologist who specializes in FMD and vascular medicine so seeing her once a year makes sense and having her as a resource if some other crazy doc starts saying we HAVE to do this or that is nice. We ran into one already who decided that Dana should be on some strong blood thinners. I killed that quickly and this doc agreed that Dana does NOT need to be on blood thinners. It would have caused a lot of problems. So now I've got someone to point to and say 'ask her'.

Our VRBO apartment was kind of crap and we ate at the world's worst seafood restaurant but now we know where we need to be I can find a better set up next year.

ysabetwordsmith

The Trump administration is removing bison herds from public land in Montana

The Trump administration is ordering the removal of hundreds of bison from BLM land in Montana, reversing a 2022 authorization that allowed the nonprofit American Prairie to graze its herds. The bison were allowed to graze on federal land by multiple administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first administration, which faced opposition from some ranchers who preferred the land be used to graze cattle. In a Notice of Proposed Decision issued in January, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stated that American Prairie’s bison should be managed as wildlife rather than “production-oriented” livestock, making them ineligible for grazing permits under the Taylor Grazing Act.

The hell of it is that buffalo should be recognized as wildlife and thus free to go where they please, just like elk and deer and everything else. But they're not. Every buffalo in America is owned by someone, restricted to land they control, forced to put up with some amount of human interference, and subject to being killed should they stray. That's a problem. It would be bad for any species, but it's especially bad for a keystone species that is urgently needed to fix the human fuckups affecting the Great Plains. >_<

Just in case you hadn't noticed, America is headed for another Dustbowl, and this is one of several reasons why.

Current Mood: busy

petra

There are a thousand spots to sit at home:
Upon the couch, on laundry, not just laps.
But just as all the old roads lead to Rome,
The cat returns to sit on me. Perhaps
She smells the cortisol of stress, and knows
That I'm inclined to stroke her velvet fur --
Once void-black, now specked galaxy, it flows
Softer than kitten fluff. And so she purrs,
Then settles with her head upon my wrist
And tush on laptop keys, immune to shame.
Despite spring air, my little cat finds bliss
In cuddling up and acting nearly tame.
Nine pounds of feline is enough to pin
Me to the couch, and so her reign begins.

Current Mood: purr
Current Music: She is making the rattly noise

sistawendy

Long time no post! That's at least partly because my sleep was absolute ass for most of this week, thanks to a too-soft hotel mattress, and misguided attempts to sleep elevated on hotel pillows.

But! As of late last night I'm home. Seldom have I been so glad to see my son, who picked me up at the airport and of course talked about the news. Happiness.

To catch you all up, on Monday was my first post-op appountment: bandages off, staples out. That left the cast on my nose and splints still in my nose, so still no breathing through my nose, which turned out to be the single hardest aspect of this whole process.

What the hell did I do on Tuesday? Oh yeah: I walked to Dark Garden corsets because I was under orders to walk, but they were closed. That may be for the best because a) those people are very good at extracting money from me, and b) trying on corsets is surely against the Sculptor's instructions at this point. But that block of Linden is itself really nice, with some cool street art and hanging lanterns.

I'm proud of myself for making it to Golden Gate Park and Amoeba Music on Wednesday. When I'm in San Francisco I love to go to the Tree Fern Dell and pretend to be a dinosaur. This time, a pelican flew overhead for added realism.

Thing I deliberately blew off: a tour of SomaFM, which can be arranged. I think it would have been too long a walk to that part of the Mission, and if I didn't walk, there wasn't nearly as much point.

Thursday was high stress and stupid: Alaska Airlines had moved my flight an hour earlier, making it questionable whether I could keep my original second post-op appointment and still catch my flight at OAK. The Sculptor's office rescheduled me on short notice a few hours earlier, which while mighty decent of them meant I didn't get to talk to the Sculptor before I jumped on an eastbound BART train. Punch line: I had to wait two hours before I could even check my bag, then four hours more at weirdly deserted OAK.

Oh, the actual second post-op appointment: cast off my nose, splints out of my nose – I helped remove them – and tape on my nose, which I'll be applying myself for the next four weeks for at least part of the day. As of yesterday I can breathe through my nose again!

So am I going to be goddess? I haven't the faintest, not least because I can see my face change from day to day. But it's definitely not a plastic surgery disaster. The Sculptor's chief medical minion, J, says that in two to three weeks I should pass the "grocery store test", i.e. it should stop being glaringly obvious to everyone else at PCC that I've just had surgery, the "lumpies and bumpies" having gone away.

Oh: there's hope on the all-important non-horizontal sleep front. I went up to the loft this morning, looked around, and saw the camping lounge chair that I got for Burning Man oh so many years ago. That should do nicely.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: Angine de Poitrine, "Ababa hôtel"

greghousesgf

My stupid bldg managers have now decided they are not going to just let tenants in who have lost their keys anymore, now we have to call locksmiths. I hate them.

Current Music: Joy Division

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/08/hey-ai-still-sucks/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60623

I still ask “AI” questions about me from time to time, just to see what it knows about a moderately notable science fiction author and whether it will still make up things when it doesn’t know something, and as of May 8, 2026, the answer to each is “not as much as it thinks it does,” and “it definitely will.”

As always, I remind myself: If it knows this little about something I know very well, think of how little it knows about things I know nothing about. It literally cannot be trusted with anything factual (because, one again, it doesn’t know facts, it just knows what is statistically likely to be the next word), and thinking that can be is an actual intellectual hazard and fault. Don’t be the one who does that.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/08/hey-ai-still-sucks/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60623

oursin

Story of enslaved boy featured in 1748 Joshua Reynolds portrait emerges in new study - I online attended a seminar the other week about black children in England from the C17th to C19th which leant fairly heavily on depictions in art (and also sounded a bit like the speaker had pulled out a bit at random examples from their 10 or was it more boxes of research materials) and implied that we could not know what happened to them once they were not more or less cute ornamental pets, so this article goes some way to show that sometimes the larger life story can be discovered.

***

This is interesting, given that it is a phase of the parturition cycle that doesn't tend to get that much attention - okay, I have read More Than The Average Person on 'bringing on the menses' and further measures if they were not brought on, and a fair amount about actual childbirth in history: but this is a bit unusual: Anticipating Birth in Early Modern England:

Scholars have described the days leading up to birth in the early modern period as a time when women purchased linens, prepared bedchambers, and called upon the services of a midwife and their gossips. However, manuscript recipe collections reveal that preparations in anticipation of labour went beyond such measures and incorporated the consumption of specific medicines. This article studies remedies that were designed to be taken six weeks before birth to reveal, in new ways, the experiences of late pregnancy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

***

More exciting work from the good people at CamPop, this time circling out from the census records: By linking millions of census records across decades, researchers are turning static snapshots of Victorian Britain into dynamic life histories – revealing how people moved, worked and lived in ways never before possible.

***

‘Live and let live’: Northern Ireland historian uncovers surprising era of tolerance of gay men:

Hulme said tacit ignorance and public silence enabled male queerness to flourish with only rare exposure, condemnation or regulation, with a “live and let live” ethos especially prevalent in the working class.

***

Muttering that this information can be found in the household recipe books at much less elite social levels, still, it's useful work if it gets people aware of just how diverse British food at that period was: The King’s Dinner: Family, nation, and identity on the British table, 1760-1820.

ysabetwordsmith

summerofthe69 has its theme poll open. Go vote for your favorite topics in reciprocal smut!

Current Mood: busy

paperghost

- I'm going to a meetup in Carrollton today. I don't really use Telegram but one of the local meetups I found via TFF/TFS is having an event tonight, and it's my day off, so I figured I can go. The meetup is at a Japanese restaurant, my credit card gives me cashback at restaurants this month. My sister is taking me and bringing another IRL. Hopefully today will be fun! I've never been to Carrollton but I was told there's weeb stuff and neat shops. I promised to fill the gas tank and buy something for them, if I have money left over I might get something at Emblemcon.

- Still getting used to drawing on my tablet. I'm really, really impressed with mobile Krita. I still have gripes with how the UI is the desktop version on a mobile screen, but using it is quick and painless. I think I'll be fine using Krita on mobile and CSP on desktop. I need to look into the free bundles available on this website: https://krita-artists.org/tag/bundles/75

I also need to figure out how to remake brushes onto Krita. My go-to for sketching in CSP is an aliased g-pen that changes color every stroke, that should be an option to have there.

greenstorm

Planted the tzim pee dao peaches in the middle of the winter garden, which should be the best mix of a bit of a south slope but shaded in spring from direct sun (peaches tend to bloom early and get frosted in bouncy climates). Also planted some mustang chums and random seedling manchurian apricots there, so the lined path in the winter garden to the circle is complete.

Tomatoes are hardening off really well. I've been fertilizing them more than I usually do and it sure makes a difference, though it may upset them when planting time comes.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 5/8/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 5/8/26 -- I had just gotten started digging a hole to plant things when I had to go deal with other stuff. I realized that I left my trowel out there, and now it's spitting rain so I don't know if I'll get back out. :/

EDIT 5/8/26 -- I planted the white oak seedling at the north edge of the savanna and mulched around it.

It's drizzling, but not enough to stop me.

.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith posting in

birdfeeding

Current Mood: busy

lsanderson

Mississippi River groups tell feds to act on nitrate contamination
Nrate pollution is especially acute in rural areas and has been linked to disease. More than 80 groups nationwide say immediate action is needed.
By Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2026/05/mississippi-river-groups-tell-feds-to-act-on-nitrate-contamination/

Promising ideas emerge for both Minneapolis and St. Paul downtowns
Officials are pushing a park along the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul, while Minneapolis mulls an indoor playground.
by Bill Lindeke
https://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2026/05/promising-ideas-emerge-for-both-minneapolis-and-st-paul-downtowns/ ( Read more... )

dolorosa_12

After a challenging and tiring few weeks, the Friday open thread returns, with a prompt inspired by all the love and activity I've seen around

3weeks4dreamwidth. I haven't been able to be very engaged with this at all, as it coincided with a professionally and personally very busy time, but I was reminded again of what a singularly wonderful little corner of the internet we have here, and how happy I am that this is my primary social internet home.

Therefore, this Friday's prompt is: what is special for you about Dreamwidth, and why do you like it?

I could answer with all the usual things, like the fact that makes money solely from user subscriptions, rather than algorithmic feeds, ads, or selling user data, that it has an ethos built on privacy and persistent pseudonymy, that it's text-based and slower-moving, the icon culture inherited from LJ in which icon use becomes a whole visual language, that there are filtered levels of privacy controlled by the user on a post-by-post basis, and so on, but all that's been said by many people, many times.

As well as all of the above, the things that I find particularly special about Dreamwidth (and which solidified its place as my primary internet home many years ago) are:

The perfect balance that we, as a user community, seem to have built up over the years organically, between the personal and the communal — in the sense that posts and comments are built for conversation and discussion by default, and shared into all subscribers' (chronological) feeds by default, but we all have a very clear sense that a person's posts and journal are that person's individual space, where they have freedom in both form and content. While I'm not going to say this kind of thing doesn't exist here on Dreamwidth, I personally never see the kind of outraged 'why is nobody talking about this?' (or 'why is everybody talking about [this frivolous thing] instead of [this outrage]?'), or people berating one another over choices of style or topic (or trying to drive mobs of followers to descend in outrage on other people's posts). Not every post I encounter on Dreamwidth is of interest to me (and I'm sure that's the same for everyone reading this when they think about my own journal) — although I've discovered so many new interests, and read posts by people on topics that I would never have even thought about, but which are made interesting through the way the person writes about them — and that's totally okay, as the assumption is that people will just scroll on by when required. There's no expectation of constant engagement and paranoia around metrics and short attention spans.

This sounds counterintuitive, but I actually like that Dreamwidth is a bit user-unfriendly to people whose primary engagement with the internet is via very user friendly social media platforms with a low barrier to entry. Obviously I want Dreamwidth to continue to exist, so it needs a critical mass of people to use and fund it to remain financially sustainable, but I appreciate that it requires a little bit of effort (type at least a few words into a post, or into a comment), and that passive usage (scrolling, liking, or the equivalent of sharing/reblogging/retweeting with a single click of a button) is basically impossible. In my opinion, this slight barrier to entry (probably combined with the fact that image hosting is complicated) helps keep it a generally pleasant community space, because the kind of rage-baiting virality that targets people's psychological vulnerabilities would be such hard work here.

What about you? What do you appreciate about Dreamwidth? What keeps you here?

emperor

This is the first of a trilogy, set in Orrun, a fantasy world where people tend to associate with one of 8 (demi-)gods, one of which is the Raven. We see much (but not all) of the action through the eyes of Neema, the Raven Scholar of the title. Hodgson has written murder mysteries before, and it's not entirely surprising then that Neema ends up tasked with investigating a murder.

It's not, though, primarily a murder mystery - that's just one of the things that's driving a pretty twisty plot; and while I spotted some of the plot points coming, it's a cleverly written book that keeps you guessing and only a couple of times did the plot twist feel entirely like it was "cheating". There's a range of interesting characters (although some of them didn't get fleshed out enough to really make an impression), although not all of their behaviour entirely makes sense with hindsight. Without spoiling anything, events of the first part made me reluctant to invest in some of the primary characters in the subsequent book.

Being the first of a trilogy, it ends rather in the middle of things, which is a bit disappointing (if unsurprising). While I enjoyed it, I don't think I'll be seeking out the second book until the trilogy is completed.

veronyxk84 posting in

100words

Title: Something About That Smile
Fandom: Viola come il mare (Italian TV show)
Author:

veronyxk84
Pairing: Viola Vitale/Francesco Demir
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 100 (Ellipsus)
Spoilers/Setting: Set post-S2.
Summary: A portrait at Tamara’s exhibit reminds Viola of the first unguarded smile Francesco ever gave her.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Prompt: #493 - Exhibit

Crossposted:

anythingdrabble, My journal (with bonus Italian version), “Chiamami Ancora Amore” - the Series

—
( READ: Something About That Smile )

☙ ☙ ☙

petra

I recently got a new TENS device intended to stop migraines. The zap cycle lasts 45 minutes and makes it extremely uncomfortable to move one arm. I will report back when I know more.

This morning, the cat jumped on my lap at minute 46, just as I was going to peel off the electrodes. I could've been petting her with the other arm, but nooooo.

She is generally the entity in the house accused of cat-like reflexes, but humans can do it too.

Current Mood: what would anakin skywalker do
Current Music: I'm goin' on a party ride

leecetheartist

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

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spiffikins

January 2025

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musings and meanderings

Network

Buc-ees

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We'e back from Houston and Beaux is sleeping under my desk

Buffalo

A cat sonnet

The journey ends, and the recovery continues.

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Hey, “AI” Still Sucks

Assortment

Poll

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Birdfeeding

Birdfeeding

2026.05.08

Friday open thread: Dreamwidth

The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson

[Prompt #493] Viola come il mare / Something About That Smile

Familect word: Cat-like reflexes / Cat-like timing

MerMay The Eighth

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January 2025

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