New baby bushes

Oct. 6th, 2025 03:47 pm
cimorene: Blue text reading "This Old House" over a photo of a small yellow house (knypplinge)
[personal profile] cimorene
For long-time readers following along at home, you will likely remember our year-long struggle with the open septic tanks in the yard and the conclusion a couple weeks ago when the plumbers (and the digger) finally fixed it! Unfortunately, in the process, as well as digging up a bunch of grass and the gravel of our driveway, they had to dig up

  • The horizontal cement square at the base of the cement steps to our door connecting them to the cement steps a couple yards in front of them that led up the retaining-wall hill to the higher level of the yard. Why did they build these two steps with a little square of cement between them? Nobody knows. But because it was connected to both sets of steps, and it had to be dug up, the bottom step of each set of steps is now all crumbled and broken with rebar sticking out and the step down to the ground is now too great. I guess we're gonna get some bricks???



  • RIP hideous but previously functional bottom steps :(

  • A row of established bushes marking the edge of the yard on the right of the driveway as you turn in. The broken pipe went under it. So we lost all of them. They were kind of straggly and unhappy anyway and we have tried several times to cut them back and fertilize them, to no avail.


  • A lot of the roots of the beautiful birch tree on the corner of the lot, planted by the wife of the builder of the house, so probably sometime around 1950. The city workers who dug up and repaved the street 1 year ago unfortunately cut right up to the base of the trunk at the corner, so it lost a bunch of roots then, and this new excavation went almost as close, but from about 120° off. Two different old people in the neighborhood stopped on their walks to tell us "Hey, that tree's gonna die." Which seems plausible based on how much of its roots it must've lost, but it will be really sad and we are at least SLIGHTLY hoping that maybe it won't? Wax wants to wait and see how it feels next spring before we consider calling an arborist. I looked at the city website, but there is no number for the people in charge of trees (it is on city land since they own the margin next to the road) or any contact information about trees, so I suppose there isn't a municipal "Is This Tree a Danger" number.


    You can see the tree on the edge there and all the bare earth where the excavation was...


So we bought some clover seed to put where the grass used to be (hoping the headstart will help it outcompete the grass - we hate grass) (it won't grow until next spring though) and where the cement square was. We can't hope to repair the steps until spring thaw because it's too cold to be sure of being able to cure concrete already. And we also bought some baby bushes to replace our lost bushes.

One of the bushes is the extremely common native shrub dasiphora fruticosa, or shrubby cinquefoil (Swedish: Ölandstok, Finnish: pensashanhikki), the Creme Brulee cultivar, which is white. The yellow-flowered one is what you see everywhere, so this will be a little different. In the center are two spiraea betulifolias, birchleaf spireas (björkspirea, koivuangervo), a variety whose leaves turn red early in summer after it finishes blooming. And the last one next to the driveway is forsythia x intermedia Courtalyn, or border forsythia Courtalyn (forsythia, I guess? in Swedish, and komeaonnenpensas in Finnish), which will have yellow flowers. However, now we have to get one or more stakes to put around them to protect them from the snowplows. The old bushes were big enough to warn the plows off, but these guys probably not so much. And they're near the corner of the lot and the street corner at a T intersection which is a big danger zone for snow plows because of the way the street widens a bit at the corners there.

the game changed on this play

Oct. 5th, 2025 06:33 pm
musesfool: "We'll sleep later! Time for cake!" (time for cake!)
[personal profile] musesfool
Since I'm going to the office on Tuesday and my whole team is supposed to be in, I am finally going to be able to get some feedback on funfetti cupcakes. So today, I baked both the Sally's Baking Addiction recipe (black and white cupcake papers) and the Smitten Kitchen recipe (yellow and red cupcake papers) (pics), and I think the Sally's recipe is the winner. I particularly like that it uses melted butter instead of having to cream the butter and sugar, so it can be done easily by hand. (For Christmas, I will double the recipe, so I'll use the stand mixer anyway, but overall, I do like a recipe that can be made without one.) My plan is to make the SK frosting attached to that recipe (doubled, and potentially tripled if necessary since I have 72 cupcakes to frost (38 Sally's, 34 Smitten Kitchen - overall they made 40 and 36 mini cupcakes, respectively, but I ate 2 of each). Normally, I would go for cream cheese frosting for funfetti, but both my nephews have said they prefer buttercream, and since this is specifically for them (and to replace the vanilla cupcakes I've been making but have been unhappy with), I figured I'd go with their preference. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I am so sad HGTV cancelled Bargain Block - I still have the last couple of post-New Orleans episodes to watch, but then it will be all over and I will miss Keith and Evan a lot. I heard they also cancelled Married to Real Estate, which I also enjoy but still have a couple of seasons I haven't seen, and that Unsellable Houses is probably also going to get canned, which is a shame because that is my other favorite HGTV show and I have already watched all that is available. On the plus side, it seems like Home Town will be coming back, and I do enjoy that one, plus the new season of Help! I Wrecked My House (now in Park City, UT) has started (though I haven't watched it yet). And of course, my Elementary rewatch continues.

*
lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
[personal profile] lightreads
3/5. Another novella in this fantasy series about the scholar who has a demon in his head. This one about a misadventure with teens in tow, and how families grow and change, and young people starting to find their way.

Pleasant, but I continue to think that there is a tidiness to these books that keeps me from really liking them. It’s not just the knowledge that everything will work out in the end, which it generally does, but occasionally not. I think it’s that she’s set up this theological system to be a bit . . . I don’t know. Categorical? Hogwarts house-y? Overly interventionist? IDK, these books feel terminally undangerous in the midst of dangerous things happening. Angsty teens figure out their life plans in 30,000 words or less. Everyone has a salutary lesson. Go home. I’m not expressing it well. Whatever it is, I think it emanates from the theology, and it renders these books just a little bit too neat, too easy.

Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton

Oct. 4th, 2025 02:18 pm
lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
[personal profile] lightreads
Lady Hotspur

3/5. What if Henry IV (loosely) but make it epic fantasy and make most of the major players women, and make most of those women queer.

Yes, there is a prequel book that I did not read, because I do what I want. This would probably be richer if you read in publication order, but it’s one of those situations where the prior book is set several generations before, so, you know.

Anyway, yes, the premise sounds great, and large portions of this book are wonderful. This manages to feel Shakespearean, and I don’t mean that it feels tragic (though it has that mode). It’s bawdy and political and deeply concerned with how history turns upon character, and how people stand or fall on their flaws. It also has a tremendous sense of the numinous and, getting somewhat less Shakespearean here but also not in another realm or anything, a wonderful touch with multiple shades of queerness and how that functions or doesn’t in monarchist systems.

However, while I’ve read books that were too long, I can’t remember the last time I read one that was at least a hundred thousand words too long. Phew. That is truly impressive bloat. I would be rating this higher if it were like 40% shorter (which would still make it a damn long book, to be clear). I lost patience with this multiple times. I always came back and found something to enjoy again, but man.

Read if you really like queer lady knights, women running the world, that Shakespeare feeling, and a book that feels as if it is tremendously slow even as many things are happening.

Content notes: Murder, war, references to child abuse, miscarriage, cancer.

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

Oct. 3rd, 2025 11:23 am
lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
[personal profile] lightreads
Hemlock & Silver

4/5. One of her standalone twisted fairy tales, this one about the poisoning expert called in to figure out if the king’s daughter is being poisoned, and the strange and horrifying magical discoveries she makes.

This is good, but it finally clarified for me what is wrong with her romances. The good stuff first: a wonderfully practical, weird, obsessive, traditionally unbeautiful heroine. A series of animal companions, talking and otherwise. A genuinely creepy place to explore. A sad fairy tale under it all.

The romance: This one is not as bad as many of her others, I will say. But I finally put my finger on what’s wrong with them. It’s that she spent the first half of this book developing this woman into a vivid, quirky, peculiar, wonderful character. And the second the romance is on page, every jot of that character work vanishes and she reverts to boring and clumsy romance beats. Like the heroine coming to the conclusion, despite vast mountains of evidence, that the guy is repulsed by her. A thing that could happen? Sure. A thing that could happen with this character? I suppose, but you’d have to lay a lot of groundwork. Fundamentally, I think her heroines, which are the best part of these books, stop being themselves when it comes to romance, and I hate that.

Content notes: Past child death, past murder of spouse, creepiness with mirrors, body horror.
musesfool: kara cutting her hair (strangle the stars)
[personal profile] musesfool
Ugh, I woke up at 3:30 this morning coughing my lungs out and didn't really sleep much after that. It's that itchiness in my throat and chest that make me think allergies, especially given that I haven't really been around people except at the dentist's office yesterday, so I don't think it's covid? But who knows at this point? My quest to get this year's flu/covid shots has been derailed a couple of times but I am off again next Friday, so that is going to be my next attempt.

In more fannish news, I read that Dungeon Crawler Carl has been optioned for tv, and now I want a Carl vid to Mike Ness's version of "Don't Think Twice."

*

Drawtober! (Day 1)

Oct. 1st, 2025 09:53 pm
goss: Rainbow - Paint (Rainbow - Paint)
[personal profile] goss
It's the 1st of October, and the start of our annual Drawtober challenge over at [community profile] drawesome! :D

I don't think I was able to manage participating at all last year, but I'm determined to do it this time around. Sometimes it helps to keep a theme in mind or a particular direction to go in, so I'm thinking about focusing on figure drawing - gestures, line of action, musculature, that sort of thing.

Day 1's prompt was THROUGH A WINDOW. I sketched the figure from a reference photo and filled with marker:

Day 1 - Through a window

Feels like I haven't done any art in forever, so this is a good start I think! :)

One of my art goals is learning to convey movement using fewer strokes, to develop a more loose and natural figure drawing style, which I know will only come with practice. Not sure how many sketches I'll be able to do this month, but I'm hoping for around 10.

Here's the list of daily art prompts, for my own reference: Drawtober 2025 Prompts )
musesfool: orange slices (orange you glad)
[personal profile] musesfool
Rabbit, rabbit! Gotta start the month out right!

According to the dentist, my teeth are mostly fine but another old filling has started to crack so he wants to take it out and put a crown on it. Since I have money in my FSA because I didn't order new glasses, I said let's do it! So as long as he gets the approval from my insurance, I should be having that done on 10/22. I'll probably still have to pay about $500 out of pocket, but that's better than the whole $1500. As always, he marveled about the Maryland bridge I have, which has been in place since 1994; even when I got it, my dentist at the time said it would probably only last 5 years, so it's quite impressive. "Those dentists back then knew what they were doing!" he told me today, and I wanted to be like, "1994 wasn't that long ago," but it was 31 years ago apparently. That just seems wrong.

Anyway, I could barely stay awake on my way home, so I crawled into bed and ended up sleeping for THREE HOURS, which I was not expecting. I will take it though.

I made pancakes for dinner, but as I was mixing up my wet ingredients, I put what I thought was vanilla in the mixing cup, but as soon as I smelled it, I knew it was the wrong bottle. It turned out to be fior di Sicilia, which is lovely and smells like an Italian bakery, but is not what I wanted in my pancakes. Whoops. The vanilla bottle is the same size, so I have now rearranged that shelf so the vanilla remains in front and the fior di Sicilia is back behind a bunch of stuff. I also redid my wet ingredients - it was only an egg and some milk, so not a huge loss to start over.

Now I'm going to watch the new episode of Slow Horses and then later, the season premiere of Abbott Elementary.

*

Books read, June

Oct. 1st, 2025 01:13 pm
cyphomandra: boats in Auckland Harbour. Blue, blocky, cheerful (boats)
[personal profile] cyphomandra
Everything that’s not Murderbot, as I also read all the rest of the extant Murderbot corpus this month. Favourites - All the Beauty in the World for new to me, Longshot for re-read, and Cat Man for manga/graphic novel.

Longshot, Dick Francis (re-read)
The Salt Path, Raynor Winn
The Wild Silence, Raynor Winn
Landlines, Raynor Winn
Bean There, Found You, Cameron Tate
A dim prognosis: our health system in crisis - and a doctor’s view on how to fix it, Ivor Popovitch
Bonds of brass, Emily Skrutskie
Invisible, Christina Diaz Gonzalez & Gabriela Epstein
Grave expectations, Alice Bell (re-read)
Turning 12, Kathryn Ormsbee & Molly Brooks
All the beauty in the world: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bingley
Cat Man, Parari
She loves to cook and she loves to eat, Sakaomi Yuzaki, v 5
My darling dreadful thing, Johanna van Veen


Cut for length. )
musesfool: Stephanie Brown as Batgirl (can't hardly wait)
[personal profile] musesfool
Pet-sitting over the weekend was ok, not great. Bleu was a good boy and a sweetheart. Brie was fine when we were inside, but once she got out, it took a couple of hours - repeatedly - to coax her back into the house, because even though she was happy to climb into my lap on the couch, she flinched away whenever I stood in the doorway and called her to come in. Even just sitting in a chair and propping the door open and putting down treats to lead her in took a while. So that was not great. Additionally, because of the cat, I had to take a ridiculous amount of allergy medication just to breathe and my throat and chest were itchy the whole time.

On the plus side, the pizza I ordered was delicious!

I took yesterday off and scheduled a grocery delivery, which never arrived. Apparently none of the drivers would take it? I don't know what that even means, but I took that personally. I cancelled the order, and then today, put in an Aldi order which arrived on time and only cost half as much. *hands*

I'm off again tomorrow for a dental appointment. We are battening down the hatches for a govt shutdown at work, but should be okay if it doesn't last too long. Otherwise, there could be furloughs.

If you, like me, want to escape into fanfic, here's this month's recs update:

[personal profile] unfitforsociety has been updated for September 2025 with 10 recs:

9 Batfamily and 1 Batfam/Spiderman crossover

***

some are scared to fly so high

Sep. 30th, 2025 06:35 pm
unfitforsociety: (pink clock)
[personal profile] unfitforsociety
Batfamily

Catmoman by [archiveofourown.org profile] coal_scuttle_waltz
Catwoman keeps asking Bruce weird questions. ♥Selina♥ This is super cute!

Here Comes Santa Claus by [archiveofourown.org profile] TaraLaurel
It's another annual Wayne Enterprises Christmas party, but this year, there is a special guest... Oh my heart...

maybe in another life by [archiveofourown.org profile] dizarys
Dick always said his siblings were welcome anytime. Jason decides to see if that's true. <333

Moonbeams in a Jar by [archiveofourown.org profile] happybeans
This is a sweet Tim-joins-the-family-early AU.

Olive Branch by [archiveofourown.org profile] GalaxyOwl13
The Bats are making it impossible for Red Hood to accomplish anything. In an attempt to get them off his back and restore his productivity, Red Hood agrees to a meeting with Batman to talk terms.

Bruce is just happy that his son is willing to talk to him after the mistimed Batarang throw. Sure, he's more than a bit confused why Jason is treating a coffee meetup like a business negotiation, but he'll take any conversation he can get.

Meanwhile, Jason is wrangling intrusive thoughts and terrified out of his mind.
Oh Jason...

Performance Review Pending: A Wayne Family Business Saga by [archiveofourown.org profile] Viwiel
Chronicles of the Wayne Family's excursions in the corporate world (legitimate as well as criminal). Absolutely hilarious!

tiptoes by [archiveofourown.org profile] thirdgleam
Tim wakes up in an alternate dimension. One where he's eleven and living on the streets. One where Batman really does work alone, no Robin by his side. One where Dick is eight years old and the Flying Graysons are still flying.

It would all be much easier to deal with if he remembered how he got there.
Long, thoughtful AU where Tim ends up the older brother to Dick and Jason, and how they all grow together.

You're Robin, Remember? by [archiveofourown.org profile] Megaerakles
A very normal Timothy Drake is having a very normal day, right up until a stranger in a red helmet appears in his living room with a gun and starts making some outlandish claims.

What's this about Tim stealing a robin?
This is hilarious and adorable!

what right had you not to let me die? by [archiveofourown.org profile] a_alene
Jason Todd is about to find out why hundred and four degree fevers are, generally, considered detrimental to one's well-being. Tim Drake is about to commit crimes against Top Ramen and humanity. Bruce Wayne is about to fret. What else do you expect? Hilarious!



Crossover

Spiderman/Batman

With Great Power Comes Great Annoyance by [archiveofourown.org profile] N0t_Sketchy
Very sweet crossover where an adult Peter Parker becomes a kind of mentor to the Batkids (who are all very young in this AU), and I love it when Peter mentors young heroes.

tarlanx: Lan Wangji with Wei Wuxian head on shoulder (Cdrama - The Untamed 1 - lean)
[personal profile] tarlanx posting in [community profile] theuntamed_mdzs
Title: Dizi and Sixteen Years
Author: Tarlan ([personal profile] tarlanx)
Fandom: The Untamed (TV)
Pairing/Characters: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian
Rating/Category: PG SLASH
Word Count: 400
Summary: The reunion after sixteen years from Lan Zhan's point of view.

On AO3:
Dizi: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69841006
Sixteen Years: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69492656

Content Notes: A triple drabble and additional drabble written for [archiveofourown.org profile] dreamkist in [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles Summer Round 2025, using their prompts: Reincarnation and Meditation. Originally I wrote these as a single drabble series but the mods felt that did not meet their criteria of a drabble series/sequence as it was based on a single scene so I split them up into a triple and single drabble for my recipient.
 

Graphics - icons mostly

Sep. 30th, 2025 12:49 pm
tarlanx: Wei Wuxian being carried behind by LWJ (Cdrama - The Untamed 2 - carry)
[personal profile] tarlanx posting in [community profile] theuntamed_mdzs
I have been so remiss in forgetting to post things here! These are all The Untamed icons I have created:

ICONSLan Xichen

The Untamed - Lan Xichen 01 by Tarlan The Untamed - Lan Xichen 02 by Tarlan The Untamed - Lan Xichen by Tarlan

Wei Wuxian

The Untamed - Wei Wuxian 01 by Tarlan The Untamed - Wei Wuxian 02 by Tarlan The Untamed - Wei Wuxian 03 by Tarlan The Untamed 10 Loved by Tarlan  The Untamed 03 Accomplished by Tarlan The Untamed 02 Happy by Tarlan

Lan Wanji

The Untamed - Lan Wanji 01 by Tarlan The Untamed - Lan Wanji 02 by Tarlan The Untamed - Lan Wanji 03 by Tarlan The Untamed - Lan Wangji by Tarlan The Untamed 08  Embarrassed by Tarlan The Untamed 07 Annoyed by Tarlan

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wanji

The Untamed - Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian by Tarlan The Untamed - Wanji-Wuxian 01 by Tarlan The Untamed - Wanji-Wuxian icon 01 for Kate by Tarlan The Untamed - WangXian icon 02 for Kate by Tarlan The Untamed - WangXian icon 03 for Kate by Tarlan The Untamed - WangXian icon 04 for Kate by Tarlan

The Untamed - WangXian icon 05 for Kate by Tarlan The Untamed - WangXian icon 06 for Kate by Tarlan The Untamed - WangXian icon 07 for Kate by Tarlan The Untamed - Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji by Tarlan The Untamed 09 Exhausted by Tarlan The Untamed 06 Scared by Tarlan

The Untamed 05 Worried by Tarlan The Untamed 04 Relaxed by Tarlan The Untamed 01 Sleepy by Tarlan The Untamed - Snow by Tarlan.gif The Untamed - Hearts by Tarlan 02.gif The Untamed - Hearts by Tarlan 01.gif

The Untamed - LWJ recognizes WWX by Tarlan

Xiao Xingchen

The Untamed - Xiao Xingchen 01 by Tarlan The Untamed - Xiao Xingchen 02 by Tarlan The Untamed - Xiao Xingchen 03 by Tarlan The Untamed - Xiao Xingchen 04 by Tarlan The Untamed - Xiao Xingchen 05 by Tarlan The Untamed - Xiao Xingchen 06 by Tarlan

Jiang Cheng

The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 01 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 02 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 03 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 04 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 05 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 07 by Tarlan

The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 08 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 09 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 10 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 11 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 12 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 13 by Tarlan

The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 14 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 15 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 16 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 01 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 02 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 03 by Tarlan

The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 04 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 05 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 06 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 07 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 08 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 09 by Tarlan

The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 10 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 11 by Tarlan The Untamed-MDZS - Jiang Cheng 12 by Tarlan The Untamed - Jiang Cheng 06 by Tarlan

Jaing Yanli

The Untamed - Jaing Yanli by Tarlan

OTHER GRAPHICFor a challenge to create a Tumblr-style Graphics with the image from one fandom/source and the quote from another.

Quote from: Batman (1989)

The Untamed with quote from Batman

 
cimorene: Abstract painting with squiggles and blobs on a field of lavender (deconstructed)
[personal profile] cimorene
I had covid once, in April 2022 I think, and I had restless leg syndrome for the first time in my life during that infection. It was EXTREMELY uncomfortable - I couldn't sleep properly, and I mostly couldn't feel comfortable at all sitting up, but I also could not stop moving my legs almost constantly. I think I settled on weakly bicycling them. But since the rest of my symptoms approximated a severe flu, it also sort of blended into the background nightmare and I don't remember it very clearly.

That was the first time I ever had RLS, and I only know the name because I was googling the symptom at the time. Apparently it was a known symptom of that variant, or that's what the net told me at the time.

Well, I just had it for the SECOND time ever last night!

I fell asleep at midnight, and I guess I was awake with physical discomfort, verging on actual pain, from about 2 am to 7 am when I got up to give the cats their breakfast. It was a bit like the discomfort of a limb that's going to cramp or go to sleep in a bad position, but moving only eased it for a moment, so I was tossing and turning and only managed to sleep fitfully once during that, dreaming that I had RLS. After I fed the cats at 7 I microwaved a wheat pillow and when I went back to bed I put it on my thighs, which enabled me to fall asleep finally. Then, of course, I overslept.

Wax says that she gets RLS sometimes, but a mild version that doesn't bother her as much, and that it's apparently a known symptom of menopause?! Wow, I hate that.

And like so many problems, unfortunately, the most effective recommendations for managing it are all stuff like regular good sleep hygiene and good exercise habits, and it's like yeah I know, I'm TRYING! That, and maybe iron might help.

(no subject)

Sep. 28th, 2025 08:25 am
skygiants: janeway in a white tuxedo (white tux)
[personal profile] skygiants
VOYAGER CATCH UP. I said I wanted to post about the first half of S6 before we were actually done with s6 and have not .... quite achieved that, technically, but TODAY we start the seventh and final season so I feel like if I post today it more or less counts, spiritually, emotionally, etc.

Voyager Season 6, episodes 1-13 )

Overall early S6 not a high point in our Voyager experience, with some exceptions; it feels like we're on a little bit of a downward arc after the highs of S4/S5, but we will see what the future holds!

(no subject)

Sep. 27th, 2025 12:37 pm
skygiants: Kozue from Revolutionary Girl Utena, in black rose gear, holding her sword (salute)
[personal profile] skygiants
Q: So, did you expect to like Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword?

A: No. If I'm being honest, I did not pick up this book in a generous spirit: I haven't read any Grossman previously (though I watched some of The Magicians TV show) but my vague impression was that his Magicians books were kind of edgelordy, and also he annoyed me on a panel I saw him on ten years ago.

Q: Given all this, why did you decide to pick up his new seven hundred page novel?

A: I saw some promotional material that called it 'the first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium' and I wanted to fight with it.

Q: And now you've finished it! Are you ready to fight?

A: ... well ... as it turned out I actually had a good time ........

Q: Ah. I see. Did it have a good Kay?

A: NO. Kay does show up for a hot second and I did get excited about it but it's not for very long and he's always being an asshole in flashbacks. It has a really good Palomides though -- possibly the best Palomides I've yet encountered, which is honestly not a high bar but still very exciting. Also, genuinely, a good Arthur!

Q: Gay at all?

A: No, very straight Arthur. Bedivere's pining for him but it's very unrequired, alas for Bedivere. There is also a trans knight and you can tell that Lev Grossman is very proud of himself for every element of that storyline, which I thought was fine.

Q: What about the women, did you like them? Guinevere? Nimue? Morgan?

A: Well, I think Lev Grossman is trying his very best, and he really wants you to know that he's On Their Side and Understands Their Problems and Respects Their Competence and, well, I think Lev Grossman is trying his very best.

Q: Lancelot?

A: I have arguments with the Lancelot. Can we stop going down a character list though and talk about --

Q: God?

A: Okay, NOW we're talking. I don't know that I agree with Lev Grossman about God. Often I think I don't. Often while reading the book, I was like, Mr. Grossman, I think you're giving me kind of a trite answer to an interesting question. I don't actually think we need to settle this with a bunch of angels and a bunch of fairy knights having a big stupid fight around the Lance of Longinus. BUT! you're asking the question! You understand that if we're talking about Arthurian myths we have to talk about God! And we have to talk about fairy, and Adventures, and the Grail, and the legacy of Rome, and we have to talk about the way that the stories partake of these kind of layered and contradictory levels of myth and belief and historicity, and we don't have to try to bring all these into concordance with each other -- instead we can pull out the ways that they contradict, that it's interesting to highlight the contradictions. You can have post-Roman Britain, and you can have plate armor and samite dresses and the hunting of the white stag, and the old gods, and the Grail Quest -- you don't have to talk to just one strain of Arthuriana, you can talk to all of them.

Q: Really? All of them?

A: Okay, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them. I think that's why I liked it -- I think he really is trying to position himself in the middle of a big conversation with Malory and Tennyson and White and Bradley and the whole recent line of Strictly Historical Arthurs, and pull them into dialogue with each other. And, to be clear, I think, often failing! Often coming to conclusions I don't agree with! Often his answer is just like 'daddy issues' or 'depression,' and I'm like 'sure, okay.' But it's still an interesting conversation, it's a conversation about the things I think are interesting in the Matter of Britain -- how and why we struggle for goodness and utopia, how and why we inevitably fail, and a new question that I like to see and which Arthurian books don't often pick up on, which is what we do after the fall occurs.

Q: Speaking of the matter of Britain, isn't Lev Grossman very American?

A: Extremely. And this is a very American Arthuriana. It wants to know what happens when the age of wonders is ending -- when life has been good for a while, within a charmed circle, and now things are falling apart; but the charmed circle itself was built on layers of colonial occupation and a foundational atrocity, and maybe that did poison it from the beginning. So, you know. But I don't think any of this is irrelevant to the UK either --

Q: Well, you also are very American and maybe not best qualified to talk about that, so let's get back to characters. What did you think of Collum?

A: Oh, the well-meaning rural young man with a mysterious backstory who wants to be a knight and unfortunately rolls up five minutes after the fall of the Round Table, just in time to accompany the few remaining knights on a doomed quest to figure out whether Arthur is still alive somewhere or if not who should be king after him, in the actual main plot of the book?

Q: Yeah, him. You know, the book's actual protagonist.

A: Eh, I thought he was fine.

thinking of ways to make it better

Sep. 26th, 2025 02:22 pm
musesfool: a baseball and bat on the grass (the crack of ash on horsehide)
[personal profile] musesfool
Slow Horses: Bad Dates: We are so back, baby! spoilers ) Very interested in seeing where this is going.

I am less on the bandwagon and more cautious and disbelieving about the Mets' playoff chances. They control their own destiny for now, but having to play the Marlins to cement their wild card spot is giving me very unhappy flashbacks to past collapses. Also, if Tyrone Taylor is not in CF the rest of the way now that he's back from the IL, then I don't even know what we're doing here.

Lastly, I will be pet-sitting overnight at my brother's tomorrow, so hopefully the new-ish dogs are okay with that. We'll see how it goes!

*

I've started clicker training Sipuli

Sep. 26th, 2025 05:33 pm
cimorene: A very small cat peeking wide-eyed from behind the edge of a blanket (cat)
[personal profile] cimorene
Sipuli has had three days of short sessions, 5-10 minutes, of clicker training, and it's adorable. She's possibly the cleverest cat we've ever met, and she's very food-motivated.

Our rewards are the little cubes of freeze dried chicken, which are much more expensive than most cat treats but also healthier because, unlike most cat treats, they don't contain anything but meat; and they were the only kind Snookums could have because he was diabetic, and as a result Tristana is used to getting them at bedtime and after Procedures like claw trimming and ear cleaning.

Sipuli has not fully mastered "touch the target", but she's so engaged, and you can see her thinking.

The idea behind this suggestion from the cat behaviorist was, I think, being able to ultimately train them simultaneously in parallel, and maybe get them to act differently at the gate. This seems possible, but we haven't started training Tristana or introduced Wax making the requests yet, so it's early.

On the minus side, yesterday Sipuli got out and chased Tristana across the room for about thirty seconds. You'd have thought they were both dying, but actually it seems like they did not in fact touch each other at all - Tristana was screaming under the chair while Sipuli was yelling back. That's good, that nobody was hurt and they didn't physically fight. But obviously still a setback. Tristana had to go hide in the turtle bed on the heated upstairs bathroom floor for a few hours.
lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
[personal profile] lightreads
Betrothed to the Emperor and Emperor's Wrath

2/5. M/M fantasy romance about the royal twins raised to kill the emperor of the encroaching empire, except when they are presented, the emperor chooses the brother to marry, not the sister as planned. And then stuff happens.

I got sucked in based on the trope set, even though I knew damn well this was not going to satisfy. And I was right. There’s something extra frustrating about someone doing tropes you’re into, but with such limited skill that nothing really lands. Here, for example – the books are trying to do fake/pretend relationship but whoops it’s also real, but they’re so incoherent about it and so impatient to get to the porn that I couldn’t keep track from one scene to the next whether we were treating it as real or not. These books also do that thing where our first person narrator totally misses that the guy is into him, but it’s done so clumsily here that it just makes him look incredibly, pathologically stupid.

/cranky

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