Do Fish Burps Echo?

I still exist!

Or maybe I don't!

Can you trust anything written on April Fool's Day?

CAN YOU?!?!?!!!


In other news, the audiofic archive is back up and running and this is so very awesome and thus I am celebrating by watching all of the TV in the world in the background whilst archiving one billion podfics. I'll return to online life and fandom proper once I'm working on that a little less breakneck and then I'll do a proper update-type post and ask how everyone's been doing.

In sum, I LOVE YOU ALL and I have to go archive some things now!

*poooof* *de-lurks*

So I might slowly be clawing my way back to having time enough to be actually un-hiatus-y? *touches wood* *crosses fingers* *turns around three times* *throws salt over shoulder* But in the meantime, here's two recipes (even if neither of them are ones which I've promised people. But they're the ones I've finished writing up, so they're the ones getting posted! *g*).

*poof* *re-lurks* :P

( Slight rambling wrt motivation for cooking with lavender. )

There are two dishes here, the lavender-and-corn and the summer squash. They go rather well together and combine to make a light supper, although if you'd rather have a full meal, I'd suggest adding a nice toasted starch-- ideas I contemplated were: naan, lightly toasted cornbread, a very not-rich biscuit, fresh tortillas, or maybe a simple quesadilla. (Um, yeah, and I also was thinking that a bit of my father's homemade beef jerky would have gone quite well too. Which is clearly not a starch. So, um, let your tummy guide you.)


QUICK DESCRIPTIONS

Recipe 1: Corn with Lavender

A subtle play of flavours in a refreshing summery dish. The warm and soft corn is nicely complimented by the cool and crisp lemon cucumber. It requires a little bit of time and attention during the cooking but isn't inherently difficult.

Recipe 2: A Basic Summer Squash Sauté

Quick, easy, tasty.

Time and serving sizes for making both
1.5 hr-ish
2 people for supper

Photos
I took pictures with my phone, but it's new and I'm having a devil of a time getting it to talk to my computer. Once I get around to figuring that out, I'll update this with pictures.

( Corn with Lavender )


( A basic summer squash sauté )


I'm sorry that this is all very rough and informal! :( If I'm unclear or if you have any questions, drop a comment and I'd be happy to help!

And if you have any suggestions, observations, etc etc, please also drop them in comments!

[Crossposted to] omnomnom.

Last night I had a very intense, vivid dream of the sort that you don't realise didn't actually occur until you wake up enough to realise it must have been a dream.

In this dream, I was following an email conversation amongst all the audiofic archivists, except I started reading in the middle of the thread, so aphelant's comment of 'americano?' was very confusing. Especially since cybel's response of 'cappuccino, I think' seemed to indicate that we'd veered off the subject of the archive. And before I could scrabble up-thread to figure out what the fuck was going on, I'd woken up. And now I won't ever know what was going on in that conversation! >:(

So, any thoughts? :P

The tally currently stands:

Fish: |
Fish's immune system's work ethic: -1
Space Viral invaders: |

I've managed to catch another virus and within only days of posting my last entry! Thus, I've decided to give my immune system a negative point. :(

*insert something witty here*

Okay, back to bed. >:(

Dude, it had to be in two LJ posts because evidently I don't know when to shut the fuck up? Or something. At this point, I have no idea what on earth is in that rec set any more, I mean, I really hope it doesn't contain, like, me doing keyboard mashes or something, but fuck if I'm going to look at it for any longer. I think my head might explode if I do. I'm fairly certain that this means that when I look back at it later, I'll cringe with embarrassment. OTOH, it's posted, boo-yaaah! (I'm trying not to think of how long ago I promised this set.) Erm, this half of a set? Because I feel like it's still not long enough, so eventually there'll be the other half. But before then I'll probably post some other recs, because it turns out I'm really bad at writing things in order (this should *not* be a surprise anymore, really), so yeah, there's bits and bobs of other recs gathering dust on my computer. Maybe I'll clean some of those up eventually and post them. But in the meanwhile, I'm going to go do a celebratory dance or something, I don't know. *collapses into a puddle* Oooh, there's ice cream in the freezer, mayhap I'll go investigate that! *reconstitutes self from puddle for sake of ice cream*

ETA: AHHAHAHAHHAHAA, WHO FORGOT TO PUT IN THE LINK? OH YEAH, IT WAS ME! http://fish-recs.livejournal.com/2011/04/24/ /ETA

Evidently I'm on hiatus right now, who knew? ;p Yeah, I'll try to un-hiatus at some point *waves hands vaguely into the future* (I'm fine, just busy. Really really busy.)

To tide you over until actual content resumes, would you like to read a story written for me for help_pakistan? Correct answer: Yes! It's for a song, one that's fairly old-- it's thought to be a variant of one of the Child ballads. (And at some point I'll put actual links in here.) I love the song and I love where snow has taken this story. ETA: The fic would probably make much more sense if you've heard the song or at least read the lyrics. (A lyrics link can be found in the author notes.) /ETA

Fic: Jane Barbour or To Hell With All Your Land
by: Snow // snow // snowishness
Fandom: John Barbour (Song)
Etc.: General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply (no Fish-specific warnings apply either), Jane Barbour/John Barbour, 766 words
Summary: "I would if I could," I say, knowing as I do it that it's not good enough. "But she chose to marry a sailor, and that's what I am." // "Decide what's more important to you, your wife's health or your sailing."
My notes: HELL FUCKING YEAH! Anything else would be spoilery. (I'll try to come up with an actual note when I repost this to my recs comm, but in the meantime, I'm too busy going :D about the final line to say anything else.)

Because I am horribly indecisive sometimes, I ended up giving Snow ten billion songs to choose amongst for her prompt (which I then subdivided into two separate playlists, because I may have been indecisive, but at least I was indecisive in categories!). Would people be interested in seeing those playlists?

So once upon a time (round about a year ago), I decided that I ought to make a comm to revel in the awesomeness that is [A thousand ways to please a husband with Bettina's best recipes]. I created bettinas_fandom, there was a bit of interest in it, and then it sort of fizzled out as people got caught up by various other things. And I do know that that is in part my fault as the mod, for not having done more to keep up interest (I swear, I have three posts in draft on: (a) historical perspectives and additional resources and references, (b) icons, (c) linkspam of preexisting posts (fannish and not) to the book. I just, um, still haven't finished them?).

So, anyway, I've decided that since evidently it's time for this year's yuletide that I should move the comm over to DW and see if I can get a fledgling comm together in time for it to be useful for this year's fest. Which is all well and good until I end up chasing myself in circles on if I should keep the comm name as bettinas_fandom or if I should change it to bettinas_kitchen (this is why I like having co-mods -- so there's someone to smack you upside the head when you're being ridiculous). But since I don't have a co-mod, I figure, why not ask the internet! :)

So I was reading an Inception fic, right? (It was advertised as an Eames+wee!Arthur, what?) And it had a line in there about kids being more trusting and open than adults (with implications of then it would be easier to steal secrets from the-mark-as-a-child than the-mark-as-self), and they said 'oh perhaps like at the grandparents' house where they feel loved, or something like that'. And then the story went and continued (and I decreed that there wasn't enough sap for me, but eh, sometimes I am the maple tree in spring and want all the sap in the world to be mine.)

But after leaving the story I did, as I so often do with stories, spare a moment to think upon what had been presented there, and decided that for me it was not true; there are plenty of ways to feel loved and still not feel secure, especially when still trying to find one's place. (When I was that young, being at my grandparents' house was more about vastness and running around, and always there being new people there, and exploring, and feeling a little bit odd and uncertain but that being okay because evidently that was fine.)

{This is not your eulogy, Uncle, (after all, you do not appear in it, nor does your influence); it might be Grandmother's except that it isn't (for all that she does appear in these memories)-- but what it is is a mark of how there comes a time when memories will not be only heartache.*}

I cast my mind back further and it showed me a memory-of-a-memory (worn blurry around the edges from the passage of time and maybe a bit from repeated handling or neglect [it's hard to tell, sometimes]): of a young little Fish and her father, standing on the back porch against the railing, looking out over the slopes leading to the mountain, (it is bright, maybe the sun was out or maybe the clouds were high and thin), half a kiwi in his hand and a spoon, as they scoop out little tiny slivers of the fruit (they become common later but then they are rare and expensive, and deliciously ripe and perfect (and will always be thought of as luxury)), it is a moment worthy of savouring just as they savored the fruit. [A fragile cup of brown-furred skin scraped bare of green was all that was left, that and memory and sticky fruit juices around the mouth. It is satisfaction and happiness and calm running humming through the browns and the greens and the cheerful, bright tang of a fruit from far-away ground.]

(As I got older, their backyard was smaller and a little less wild and hid fewer undiscovered countries and few secrets. I knew the butterflies by the garage and the penny plants in the corner and the faces were familiar aside from the youngest ones who would become known in their own time, and there was learning and showing and fights and making-ups and drifting-aparts and hearing stories about childhood misbehaviours and growing up. But that would be later.)

I have missed more funerals than I have attended lately, I have had to mourn by myself from far away. (There is an unreality to mourning by yourself. When no one else is crying, how do you know that the news is not a bad dream? If you do not see the house made empty, what reason do you have to believe that it is so? [After all, every other time you've left, you've always been able to come back, so why would this one time be different? (don't tell me that it's all times after this, I don't want to face that truth yet)])

[I can tell you where the very best doughnuts are found, if they still exist (I haven't been in years). It has been too long since I have driven that way, so I don't know. I wish I could make that trip again, I wish the house with all the family people was waiting for me at the end of that journey just like it used to. [I remember being newly fifteen and stepping onto the ground after the drive to a boisterous crowd of smiling adults and running-around littles, and feeling tall in my skin, like I was a part of this massive family-amoeba which extended to us all and around us all and reaches out a bit to those not yet in it ('I am old enough now ('i am an adult'), responsible to and for this familiamoeba of mine', I thought then) and now I can notice the assumption ('it/they/this will always be here like this to come back to') which I didn't even know I was making at the time, which I now sadly know to my bones is not true. Maybe I am afraid to see if the doughnut shop is gone like so much else, or maybe I just have no reason to go past there anymore. (I would like a doughnut from there, bought on the way to visitings.)]

And all of this is memory and love and family (and some of it is wrapped up in any bite I take of a kiwi, and some of it is echoed with every cup of mint tea (avoided for months after my grandmother died) fresh from the garden I drink, and so I carry these memories with me, under my breastbone and in my mouth.


* So do not take it amiss, Uncle, that I still haven't offered you your eulogy and instead let me offer you this as a promise that someday I will be able to give that eulogy. I miss you.

Okay, so, um, evidently some folks are seeing old locked posts at lj magically now being unlocked?? [according to, idek, some post I saw on DW's 'latest' page when I clicked that bookmark instead of whatever I had intended to, which said it was via comments at the latest lj news post]. I did check, none of my locked posts (nor any comments screened on my journal) were made public, but regardless, this is enough to push me:

I'm finally importing LJ comments to DW, this is so that I can go to my locked posts and delete them (Note to people who commented on the LJ version of the help-pakistan post-- I'm going to delete those comments now, just in case LJ screws up screening as well. If you'd like to remind yourself of what you said in that comment, they are under your LJ openID on the DW post and they are screened.)

In the future, any locked/filtered/etc/whathaveyou posts will only be posted to DW. (I might make a flocked post on LJ saying 'go check out the DW flock for a new post'? I'm not sure yet, I really haven't thought that far ahead.)

I *think* I've granted access to everyone's openID's LJ account who commented on a locked post of mine (regardless of if they also have a dreamwidth account-- thus ensuring that they maintain the ability to edit/delete said comment), and I *think* I've granted access to the LJ openID of folks who don't already have access under a dreamwidth account. Let me know if that's not the case, or if you think I've somehow mucked something else up. Comments are screened at DW (which means no commenting at LJ, because I don't trust them not to fuck things up). (And I do have DW invites if anyone wants them.)

Um, possibly I'm too tired to be deleting things and granting access and whatnot right now, but I want to do this now (since I'm sure that putting it off until I'm more alert and have more time won't somehow make LJ less prone to these sorts of errors). So really please do let me know if I've done something fumble-fingered, and the not immediately necessary policy changes will be decided upon at some point when I have more brain.

And note to self: go back and add the 'comments screened' tag to the appropriate places, and the 'different lj and dw entries' tag to the posts for which the lj comments have been disabled (due to being screened on dw) and to the restricted access posts (which don't have a corresponding LJ post now, obv)

I ended up winning three offers at help_pakistan.

One thing which I won (well, technically, I didn't have the winning bid, but the offerer let non-winning bidders donate anyway, so effectively I also won!) was to donate to a Rec-a-thon at epic_recs. That was amazingly easy, the process went something like:
Fish: Here is all the money for what I bid for you, plus what I got outbid on elsewhere, plus a bit more to round up nicely.
jane_elliot: Thankee and here's the date that the rec-a-thon will be posted! And since me and my cohort did some mathamagic, there'll be *thismany* recs!
Fish: *waits impatiently*
Calendar: [Here's the date of posting of the Rec-a-thon at Epic-Recs! Enjoy!]
Fish: Wheeee, yay!

( The other two offers required me to make decisions upon winning them. That's going slightly less smoothly. :P )