(no subject)

Feb. 23rd, 2026 03:59 pm
watersword: "Shakespeare invaded Poland, thus perpetuating World Ware II." -Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. (Stock: Shakespeare invaded Poland.)
[personal profile] watersword

Well, that sure is 33 inches (84 cm) of snow out there, goodness gracious. (We beat the record from 1978! Wow.)

So far my power is fine, I have baked a loaf of bread and spent the day working my way through the manuscript for crit group tomorrow, which is another snow day. I don't think I've ever had two consecutive snow days?

The windows are completely blocked by snow, I tried to take a peek outside this morning and couldn't open the front door, it is still snowing. Hope everyone else in the path of this nor'easter is safe and warm!

ETA: Ducked out during a lull in the wind and threw some snowballs!

ghostrunner: (Default)
[personal profile] ghostrunner
Ingredients:

chocolate ganache left over from the fondue at that catering gig you worked three weeks ago
most of a can of canned pumpkin left over from when you thought you'd try mixing some into your chai
the caramel sauce you ended up with when you tried to make homemade Scotchmallows the other day and failed
1 stick of butter, unsalted
some flour, about a cup and a half
brown sugar, about a cup
oats, a handful
pumpkin pie spices, whatever you have
something like 1 tsp baking soda, because who even fucking knows about leavening
an egg, for good measure
also, some salt

Directions:

The pie plate is too big for the amount of pumpkin you have. And these tart pans are too small. Two of them? Nah, too much work. Where's that set of casserole dishes you got for your college apartment and then never used again because you moved back home five years ago and haven't left? There's a nice 1.5 qt dish that should be perfect.

In your favorite small mixing bowl, dump the flour, brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Shit, there's no unsalted butter that isn't frozen. Well, it doesn't matter, you can use salted butter. No you can't, you already added the salt. Fuck. Get a frozen stick of unsalted butter and put it in the microwave for ten second intervals until you just don't care anymore.

Preheat the oven. It's set to 350 degrees anyway so go with that. I like the convection setting. It cooks faster.

Cut the now just-barely defrosted butter into chunks and work it into the flour and brown sugar mixture with a pastry cutter. Or a knife and fork, if you don't have a pastry cutter. Or a food processor, if you're a fucking wimp. Mix in the oats.

Press the resulting mixture into the bottom and sides of the casserole dish. Realize you used way too much flour for the amount of sugar and butter. Separate out the chunks of butter from the loose flour by sifting with your fingers. Curse yourself for never learning. Examine the casserole dish. Sprinkle in some more of the mixture, just in case. Put the casserole dish in the oven to blind bake for ten minutes.

The chocolate ganache has been in a container in the back of your fridge for three weeks, so set up a double boiler to melt it. Ideally, you'd like it to be liquid enough to pour into the bottom of the crust, but not so hot that it causes problems with the pumpkin layer you'll be putting on top.

Dump the canned pumpkin into a bowl. Stare at it while thinking. Add some sugar. Don't add any sugar. It comes out too sweet. Add some pumpkin pie spices. Ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg. That stuff. About a teaspoon of each, but who really cares? Add spices until it smells like pumpkin pie to you.

It seems too liquidy. You want distinct layers. Spot the bowl of leftover flour/butter/sugar/oats mixture.

Read more... )

me and my big mouth

Feb. 20th, 2026 05:07 pm
watersword: Bare trees in a white landscape (Stock: winter)
[personal profile] watersword

Uh, so, I have a weird Jew-y dilemna.

I volunteer with my neighborhood "snow brigade", which shovels for folks who need help. We're due to get some gross "wintry mix" and "icy sleet" overnight, although maybe not much accumulation.

The couple I got assigned to emailed to say — well, here: "Hopefully there will be NO snow on Friday night and Saturday since for religious reasons we are not able to shovel. If it's not much we can deal with it Saturday night."

I emailed back to say that I don't consider helping a neighbor in need to violate shomer Shabbat and I would be happy to come by and make sure their sidewalks and steps are clear.

They said, "It would be our sin to have another Jew do any work for us on Shabbos. We very much appreciate your kind thoughts to help us. But if we can't do it, you can't do it for us either."

Uhhhhhhhhhh. I am not sure how to respond to this. I don't think this is a sin! I try to observe Shabbat in the sense of resting and renewing myself, but very much not in a traditional way — like, spending a couple of hours mending and embroidering might be part of Shabbat for me because it fills my cup and I don't always get the chance to during the week! Going to the farmer's market and spending half my paycheck and cooking something elaborate on Saturday is a profoundly Shabbosdik thing for me! I don't want to tell them "your theology is wrong" and I don't want to upset them by doing something they have told me not to do (and would apparently feel guilty about????), but ... I can't just leave an elderly couple trapped in their house with icy sidewalks for a day!

*pinches bridge of nose*

I gotta get in touch with the snow brigade coordinator and tell her what's going on so she can try to find a substitute, I guess. I wish I hadn't made it so obvious I am also Jewish, just said something cheerful about being happy to shovel in the morning, but it truly did not occur to me that their observance would mean this. My bad. Ugh.

This is gonna be a real fun conversation with the snow brigade coordinator.

ETA: Snow brigade coordinator is going to check if there's someone I can swap with for future Saturdays, but since the blizzard has been delayed until Monday, when labor is allowed, we will deal with it if and when it becomes a problem next. What a ridiculous shenanigan.

(no subject)

Feb. 19th, 2026 09:31 pm
watersword: Graffiti scrawl of "ignore this text" (Stock: ignore this text)
[personal profile] watersword

I seem to be Canadian now, which is very exciting. (My paternal grandfather was born in Ontario.) I need to pull together a relatively short stack of documents to prove it (3 birth certificates, 2 marriage certificates, 2 name change records), and fingers crossed Canada (home and native laaaaaand) will welcome me home.

It is supposed to snow AGAIN this weekend. I keep reminding myself that this is how winter is supposed to be.

My to-do list has three MUST DOs on it:

  • write up notes for therapist before Monday session
  • read & comment on manuscript for crit group Tuesday
  • pollinator garden email

If you see me doing anything else except, like, keeping body and soul together for the next few days (if it snows more than half an inch, I'll have to take care of my neighbors, and a friend is coming over with her kid to encourage me to clean and have dinner, but other than that — !), yell at me until I go back to my aforementioned tasks.

I spent this week in slide deck hell and the week before in spreadsheet hell. There is still more slide deck hell to come, but I think I can pace it out a little more now. But spreadsheet hell will not end until May, thanks to HHS (pdf link). I like accessibility work, but I also like digital paleography and information architecture and wireframing and right now accessibility is expanding to fill all the available time and then some. Fortunately, one of the slide decks from hell actually requires me to work on a writing project, so I can cling to some vestige of being a creative person who doesn't live in slide deck or speadsheet hell. Maybe someday I will actually be one! Maybe someday I can contribute to CanLit!

(no subject)

Feb. 16th, 2026 01:33 pm
watersword: A young white woman raising a feathery Venetian mask to her face (Stock: mask)
[personal profile] watersword

ARGH, the box where I stashed a bunch of pharmacy receipts has vanished into thin air and I cannot imagine where it is, nor can I persuade myself I would have thrown it out! This apartment is not large. I cannot remember the last time I saw it, but this doesn't say much.

I have made progress on the jeans I am repairing, except that there is a new spot that has worn out. It feels positively Sisyphean. Jeans of Theseus. Well, it keeps me from doomscrolling.

Steaming potatoes before browning them continues to be one of the great discoveries of my adulthood: it's so fast! and tidy! and produces perfect potatoes! I do need to acquire bamboo steamers for better steaming of fish and various Asian dishes and whatnot, but first I gotta figure out where would I put them? I have a tiny kitchen and a lot of equipment but I swear I use pretty much all of it (I would use the pasta roller more if eggs were affordable, but that really is the only thing I look at and wince, trying to justify the space). Semi-relatedly, the attempt to make the trash situation less horrible seems to be working: a small trash bin forces me to take it out more often, before the contents get gross. I should've gotten a foot-pedal model, but that is really the only flaw in the system, and I do like that the legs elevate it so I can clean under it easily. It's almost embarrassing how easy this dose of shame was to hack, but better late than never, I guess.

(no subject)

Feb. 10th, 2026 09:01 pm
watersword: Keira Knightley, looking at the camera (Keira Knightley: Gaze)
[personal profile] watersword

This might be the first time that Jo Walton's reading list did not result in a half-dozen new library holds, so I unfroze some existing holds and headed over to [personal profile] rivkat's to catch up on her notes on books. Results: several new holds, as expected and intended. I feel much better.

I fought my way past Amtrak's terrible 2FA and did not have to deal with Julie, which definitely counts as dodging the boss battle, but now I am getting errors when I try to buy my Dessa ticket, and in conclusion, computers were a mistake.

The gherkin is asleep on my chest (tiny tiny tiny snores) and allegedly it is going to go above 0° C for the first time in days, possibly weeks, tomorrow.

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