Reading. Finished The Rose Field (Pullman)!!! I am Making Arrangements for it to Leave My House. ( Read more... )
ANYWAY. I finished it. It Is Done.Then read the first few pages of Dead Hand Rule (Gladstone; latest in the Craft Wars) before deciding that actually I need to reread at least the end of Wicked Problems in order to remember what's going on...
Writing. Progress continues both glacial and extant.
Listening. My relisten-while-actually-awake of the first chunk of The Hidden Almanac continues, slowly.
Playing. We have finished an Exploders run on Hard in Inkulinati. I am contemplating, given how smoothly that went, whether I want to have a try at Very Hard...
Cooking. It's not quite "this week's breakfast dal, and a loaf of bread", but it does sort of feel like it was. Partly because for reasons we did not get our usual box of veg on Monday last week, which meant that we were scrabbling around using up Shelf Things and the occasional Supermarket Discount Item...
NO WAIT, I also DID make buckwheat pancakes, and inspired by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnr combined Tinned Pear and Stem Ginger with Vanilla Essence and also Ground Cardamom to go in same. V good. Will repeat.
Eating. My mother acquired for us, as A Special Treat, a variety of Baked Goods from The Fancy Bakery In Eddington: my favourite is still the fig-and-?ricotta, but the blueberry-and-?ricotta is also very good, as is the fougasse. A was extremely pleased with the pain aux raisins. AND my mother made some excellent baba ganoush, eaten with said fougasse.
This week also feat. rainbow bagels (which we got to watch some of the manufacturing process for!) as well as misc other foodstuffs from Shalom Hot Beigels.
A has some coffee and butterscotch cake (leftovers from a test bake!) from Flour Arrangements; alas by the time I got my act together to actually collect Excess Test Cake the apple pie and lemon had both all gone...
Exploring. I got to spend a little time in the City of London Cemetery, which is currently ablaze with (among other things) purple crocuses; we also (on our second attempt) managed to go on A Snowdrop Walk Around Anglesey (with thanks to aldabra for reminding me that it is That Time Of Year still!). Snowdrops excellent. May or may not get around to sharing some photos. (Our first attempt at A Snowdrop Walk Around Anglesey Abbey wound up mutating into a poke around the back of Churchill and Astronomy to peer at bulbs and other plants misc, which was also very enjoyable even if I did once again fail to take A to see the Barbara Hepworth.)
Growing. ... I bought a bag of snowdrops In The Green at Anglesey, to go into the ground around the cherry tree at the allotment? The lemongrass seedlings haven't all died?
Tags:
I want to talk about the education privilege meme that's been doing the rounds. On the one hand I love old-school memes that encourage lots of cool people on my d-roll to talk about their experiences growing up. But at the same time, I'm kind of frowning at this particular iteration.
( thinky thoughts )
Anyway, hopefully this is an adequate substitute for the meme and you don't need me to tell you in detail how absurdly precocious I was in reading and maths.
( thinky thoughts )
Anyway, hopefully this is an adequate substitute for the meme and you don't need me to tell you in detail how absurdly precocious I was in reading and maths.
Tags:
(siderea Feb. 21st, 2026 06:47 pm)
siderea Feb. 21st, 2026 06:47 pm)If you live in the BosWash Corridor, especially in NYC-to-Boston, you need to be paying attention to the weather. We have an honest to gosh Nor'easter blizzard predicted for the next 3 days, with heavy wet snow and extremely high winds – the model predicts the damn thing will have an eye – which of course is highly predictive of power outages due to downed lines.
Plug things what need it into electricity while ya got it.
Whiteout conditions expected. The NWS's recommendation for travel is: don't. Followed by recommendations for how to try not to die if you do: "If you must travel, have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded, stay with your vehicle."
I would add to that: if you get stranded in your car by snow and need to run the engine for heat, you must also periodically clear the build-up of snow blocking the tailpipe, or the exhaust will back up into the passenger compartment of the car and gas you to death.
As always, for similar reasons do not try to use any form of fire to heat your house if the regular heat goes out, unless you have installed the necessary hardware into the structure of your house, i.e. chimneys, fireplaces, and wood stoves, and they have been sufficiently recently serviced and you know how to operate them safely. The number one killer in blizzards is not the cold, it's the carbon monoxide from people doing dumb shit with hibachis.
NWS says DC to get 2 to 4 inches, NYC/BOS to get 1 to 2 feet. Ryan Hall Y'all reports some models saying up to 5 inches in DC and up to three feet in NYC and BOS.
2026 Feb 21 (5 hrs ago): Ryan Hall Y'all on YT: "The Next 48 Hours Will Be Absolutely WILD...". See particularly from 3:30 re winds.
If somehow you don't already have a preferred regular source of NWS weather alerts – my phone threw up one compliments of Google, and I didn't even know it was authorized to do that – you can see your personal NWS alerts at https://forecast.weather.gov/zipcity.php , just enter your zipcode. Also you should get yourself an app or something.
Plug things what need it into electricity while ya got it.
Whiteout conditions expected. The NWS's recommendation for travel is: don't. Followed by recommendations for how to try not to die if you do: "If you must travel, have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded, stay with your vehicle."
I would add to that: if you get stranded in your car by snow and need to run the engine for heat, you must also periodically clear the build-up of snow blocking the tailpipe, or the exhaust will back up into the passenger compartment of the car and gas you to death.
As always, for similar reasons do not try to use any form of fire to heat your house if the regular heat goes out, unless you have installed the necessary hardware into the structure of your house, i.e. chimneys, fireplaces, and wood stoves, and they have been sufficiently recently serviced and you know how to operate them safely. The number one killer in blizzards is not the cold, it's the carbon monoxide from people doing dumb shit with hibachis.
NWS says DC to get 2 to 4 inches, NYC/BOS to get 1 to 2 feet. Ryan Hall Y'all reports some models saying up to 5 inches in DC and up to three feet in NYC and BOS.
2026 Feb 21 (5 hrs ago): Ryan Hall Y'all on YT: "The Next 48 Hours Will Be Absolutely WILD...". See particularly from 3:30 re winds.
If somehow you don't already have a preferred regular source of NWS weather alerts – my phone threw up one compliments of Google, and I didn't even know it was authorized to do that – you can see your personal NWS alerts at https://forecast.weather.gov/zipcity.php , just enter your zipcode. Also you should get yourself an app or something.
- Breakfast dal. This experiment continues to work extremely well.
- I have definitely reached the point with the Incomplete White Puzzle where it's speeding up significantly on account of enough pieces are in place to significantly reduce the number of possible combinations that need checking. Today's decision was to start filling in from the bottom edge, where I still had a chunk that was just edge and no middles, because I think that up in the top left (interior) corner I've identified The Missing Piece, and will get annoyed if I wind up with non-contiguous gaps...
- Today alternating Locate One Puzzle Piece with Do One Useful Job has been nice and smooth and easy. I have got Several things done. Is pleased.
- Really really enjoying my ridiculous washi tape collection. Today I self-indulgently Added More Week Dividers, including replacing some pre-existing ones that I was Not Enjoying, Actually.
- ( Exercise & embodiment. )
I have introduced my mother to this, I have introduced the Child's household to this, I am writing it down because clearly It Is Time for me to do so.
( Read more... )
Tags:
Specifically: I find myself in possession of both a superking duvet cover and a deep fitted double sheet that are mostly Genuinely Nice Cotton... and have both got holes worn through them in one specific place.
I have accepted about myself that I am not a person who will tolerate sleeping on patched bedsheets (because Textures). I am loathe to just hand them over to rag recycling. I am scared of trying to sew anything out of them, but might manage it with some encouragement.
I would greatly appreciate people Being Opinionated on this topic.
Yesterday afternoon I'd been discussing auditor traps. Yesterday evening we walked out of the supermarket and were confronted by
[description in alt text, better to follow]
1. The snow has stayed on the ground here long enough that we're finally Acquiring Some Sleds in anticipation of going sledding with friends next weekend. It is so wonderful to have a winter feel like winter again.
2. Hosted a neat new-to-me game yesterday with some close friends and a potential new friend I met through my Awesome Neighbor friend. We all had a great time! We immediately rolled right into plotting More Fun Like This Soon. It's good to be exercising my making-new-friends muscles again.
2a. The game being Molly House, with its gripping shifts between personal queer joy, community delight, and pressuring fears (constables, rogues, and gossip all threatening to trigger police raids of the central molly houses),( I would be fascinated to play it again... )
3. I am looking forward to some quiet time at home tomorrow, I say, also having ambitions of Bake & Roast All The Things, do my taxes so I can get my solar panel credits reimbursed (yay, solar!), and maybe get some extra time in at the local studio before my pottery class starts.
Bonus: This being the cold hard dark slog time of year, it helps to have something joyous to move to. I went and looked up what all the musicians I last bought music from (mostly 5+ years ago) have put out in the last few years since, and bought the latest album of each. So far I'm particularly enjoying Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn's debut collaboration merging American old-time music and Chinese folksong, and the latest from MEUTE.
Have you been listening to anything particularly good lately? What is bringing you joy, defiant or otherwise?
2. Hosted a neat new-to-me game yesterday with some close friends and a potential new friend I met through my Awesome Neighbor friend. We all had a great time! We immediately rolled right into plotting More Fun Like This Soon. It's good to be exercising my making-new-friends muscles again.
2a. The game being Molly House, with its gripping shifts between personal queer joy, community delight, and pressuring fears (constables, rogues, and gossip all threatening to trigger police raids of the central molly houses),( I would be fascinated to play it again... )
3. I am looking forward to some quiet time at home tomorrow, I say, also having ambitions of Bake & Roast All The Things, do my taxes so I can get my solar panel credits reimbursed (yay, solar!), and maybe get some extra time in at the local studio before my pottery class starts.
Bonus: This being the cold hard dark slog time of year, it helps to have something joyous to move to. I went and looked up what all the musicians I last bought music from (mostly 5+ years ago) have put out in the last few years since, and bought the latest album of each. So far I'm particularly enjoying Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn's debut collaboration merging American old-time music and Chinese folksong, and the latest from MEUTE.
Have you been listening to anything particularly good lately? What is bringing you joy, defiant or otherwise?
Reading. A Variety of books with the Child, including One Fish, Two Fish and A Squeeze and a Squash.
For my own purposes I have been continuing with The Rose Field, Philip Pullman, and I do indeed continue unimpressed. Not enough to stop! But.
I also picked up What Is Queer Food? (John Birdsall) from the library when I was having an insomnia; I have made it most of the way through the introduction but I am not yet grabbed.
Writing. Words... increase.
Listening. More Hidden Almanac catch-up! "While doing the laundry" or indeed "weeding" continues to work quite well.
Playing. Puzzle progresses! I am not calculating current %age but Significant Progress.
I think we did a leeeeettle bit more of our current run of Inkulinati? But it is petering out.
Cooking. Pineapple upside-down banana bread! This time with some ground almond in it. Otherwise I think... very little of note.
Eating. I was very excited to get to try a Neuhaus dark chocolate poppy seed praline, which on the one hand was not actually quite as dark as I would like and on the other has given me Ideas.
Growing. I got some broad beans in the ground?
Tags:
One (1) duplicate letter from the DWP, which I had actually requested, because the council is apparently incapable of giving me the concessionary rate on the basis of disability without me providing one letter per year from the DWP telling them I'm still disabled, despite the fact that for anything that is not the allotment rent they can work this out from all the other information available to them without needing me to have Special Executive function;
three (3) rolls of washi tape from Sweden, one of which I have been Tempted By for probably actual years at this point and the other two of which are relevant for this year's notebook set-up and I was sad and wanted a treat;
and one (1) book, Citrus: A History, because it was £4.56, on a topic I have previously been interested in, and Interest Has Been Expressed in me yelling about it. (When will I get to it? Unclear, because once I've finished reading The Rose Field I should probably do some more pain reading, but. Eventually.)
(And why have I been sad? I genuinely do not know; my brain has just been having a Sustained Patch of Uncooperative. I would like it to stop. In addition to post, today's efforts in that direction have included a batch of pineapple upside-down banana bread, this time with some of the flour replaced with almond meal.)
Tags:
Happy Galentines/Valentines Day! We are midway through February. If you started the year with some intentions, or have accumulated some new intentions since, how are they going? Is there anything you want to prune back or lean into?
Pick a thing or two that sums up how you're doing today, this week, in general, and tell me about it in the 5-7-5 syllables of a haiku.
=
Signal-boosting much appreciated!
=
Signal-boosting much appreciated!
(solarbird Feb. 13th, 2026 11:48 pm)
solarbird Feb. 13th, 2026 11:48 pm)Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 2.0.8 – 14 February 2026 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 2.0.8.
This release is all about warnings updates. There’s no new infrastructure here but there are some closure/construction updates, the most important being temporary closure of Burke-Gilman in Kenmore, with a detour onto a car street between 61st Ave NE and 65th Ave NE. Pedestrians have to go up to Bothell Way.
Here’s the complete changes list:
- WARNING: Burke-Gilman CLOSURE in Kenmore for emergency repairs. They aren’t saying what, but it’s almost certainly hillside stabilisation where they piled up highway legos a few months ago. Between 61st and 65th Aves NE, February 16-20. (Both maps)
- WARNING: I should’ve added this already, but I’ve now added caution flags on 125th NE in Seattle showing the rework in progress through November 2026. This is a massive project and will be a massive upgrade. (Both maps)
- WARNING: Kirkland’s sewer line repair work still hasn’t let the southern Central Kirkland Connector reopen, and the latest word is end of February. Notice updated to reflect that. (MEGAMAP only)
- REMOVED WARNING: EastRail Trail South temporary closure in Renton is over, so the warning has been removed. (MEGAMAP only)
- REMOVED WARNING: Final work on the extended bike lanes of NE 124th in Kirkland wrapped up, so that warning has been removed. (Both maps)
All permalinks continue to work.
If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get bonus map variants, like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and this month I’m throwing them an all-cautions-removed 0% compression version of the MEGAMAP to see whether people like that. Plus, I can be open to requests.
Regardless – enjoy biking!
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
Tags:
Before getting myself onto the mat: all is woe, everything is too much and takes too long, I Cannot Face Cooking, we shall be forced to Resort to Sad Pasta
Ten minutes after getting myself onto the mat and starting moving: ... actually, you know what, stir-frying the purple sprouting broccoli with Stuff sounds both achievable and Vastly More Appealing, scratch the Sad Supermarket plan
It was just warm-up! I hadn't even got the endorphins going yet!
The seeds lying in their wombs of earth are turning now
preparing to kick out taproots through their coats
I rewatch the video of bluebird chicks cracking their own eggshells
Wondering at babies battering through barriers to birth themselves
Choosing again and again to leave every womb that once held them
Protected and confined
===
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
preparing to kick out taproots through their coats
I rewatch the video of bluebird chicks cracking their own eggshells
Wondering at babies battering through barriers to birth themselves
Choosing again and again to leave every womb that once held them
Protected and confined
===
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
.
