Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!
Nov. 30th, 2025 02:42 amThe standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
[pain] oh this book is bad
Nov. 29th, 2025 08:59 pmThe terrible hyphenation one can reasonably attribute to a failure to invest in subject specialist proof readers (or possibly any proof readers at all, good grief).
The wildly ahistorical nonsense about the history of medicine? Less so. I begin to understand why there isn't a references section, and I've only made it as far as page 7 before needing to stop and shriek about it and also stare at a wall for a bit...
Post-Turkey (well, there are leftovers...)
Nov. 28th, 2025 07:20 pmHave I mentioned that especially after Colonoscopy Week I've had more trouble than usual walking? I've been using my cane inside the house for the first time in quite a while, and I'm limited in how much I can carry without (more) pain. It sucks. Belovedest has set up the short ramp against the shortest outside stairs, and while going up it is Bad, going up the stairs without it is Worse. (Both outside doors have stairs.)
I wasn't available to assist with any of the Thanksgiving cooking. Belovedest did it themselves! Including: turkey, the epic tray of dressing, biscuits from the mix, and instant potatoes made the way that erases the taste of Box. (There was also salad available, but there's quite a bit of vegetable in the sausage-cornbread dressing.)
Today we had some roof inspectors. The inspection's free; the quote for fixing things up is *sigh* very much not free.
[pain] a strong contender for The Worst Possible Hyphenation
Nov. 28th, 2025 08:56 pmSpotted in today's book, with just as much of a medical theme as you might reasonably expect:
... biopsy-
chosocial...
vital functions
Nov. 23rd, 2025 10:27 pmReading. ... I think, like, a page or two of Descartes (Treatise on Man), and that's it?
OH. NO. I also finished my first pass through indexing The National Trust Cookbook for EYB. That's right. That's a thing I did.
Watching. Three Whole Entire Episodes of Beddybyes, halfway through the third of which the toddler (who felt it was Very Important that we saw it) pretty much fell asleep where it was sat.
Playing. RIDICULOUS Inkulinati run for Preposterous Amounts Of Prestige.
Cooking. Medlar jelly (plain, spiced). Quince sorbet. Several bread. A batch of buttermilk pancakes. Some terrible First, Burn Your Lettuce, thereby ticking another item off the current Cook The Book project. Buttermilk pancakes.
Eating. One of the CHILLIS from the CHILLI PLANTS we brought HOME from the GREENHOUSE just after first frost (but they were fine); also A turned the small pile of peppers that broke off the sweet pepper I brought home on a bike, still green, into akuri this morning.
Exploring. Important sploshy stomp through the puddles of Barking Park. I... think that's it?
Growing. I have NOT sown any physalis or lemongrass in the electric propagator, to get them hopefully Established by the time I need it for Other Things in the new year. This is a deliberate decision. They can go in next week.
... and now it's very definitely time for bed, goodnight world. <3
Events of note
Nov. 23rd, 2025 10:35 ambullet points for October & November
( yeah it's 99% ice hockey )
And that brings me to this week! In which I got a cold on Wednesday and therefore skipped training Wed and Fri and worked from home Thu and Fri. I did shake off the cold enough to play my first game for Huskies last night (in Gosport, against Southampton Spitfires), and later today I'll be playing for Kodiaks 2 against Lee Valley Vampires. I am especially looking forward to this one, I love playing against teams full of friends.
Next weekend Kodiaks 2 have a double-header weekend of home games in Peterborough: Saturday night against Lee Valley Vampires and Sunday night against MK Falcons 2. And that wraps up 2025 for Kodiaks 2: after 6 games in 5 weekends in November, we have zero games in December.
I have processed the fruit
Nov. 22nd, 2025 09:30 pmThere was less of it usable than if it hadn't been sitting in my living room for a fortnight, but there is one dehydrator load of apples drying, and one saucepan of Apfelmus cooling, and... I think the latter is probably going to get frozen (at least in the first instance) because I am not at all convinced I have water-bathing a couple of jars in me right now. That might be a December problem.
But. The pulp leftover from the medlar jelly is frozen in Future Sticky Toffee Pudding-sized portions. The quince sorbet is in the freezer in its tub. And the apples are As Above. I am very very glad to have got that all dealt with, but alas have no other thoughts to contribute. <3
this post is not Descartes apologia
Nov. 20th, 2025 10:25 pmbut I did spend this morning sat down with my printouts and my page markers and my highlighters, and I did this evening take some photos of the relevant pages of a book I've loaned to someone else, and the essay (I say, grandiosely) tentatively entitled The Obligatory Page And A Half On Descartes: against a new dualism is definitely In The Works.
I haven't quite worked out the It is a truth universally acknowledged... opening sentence, and it's probably mostly going to be a series of quotations accompanied by EMPHATIC GESTICULATION in the form of CAPSLOCK, but it's not actually (in its entirety) germane to The Book, so here the indignant yelling can go.
[food] breadferences
Nov. 19th, 2025 09:26 pmAt the weekend we made a mildly unusual detour to a fancy local bakery; one of the things they had on the shelves about which I went "oooh" was fig, hazelnut & anise bread. So that flavour combination (plus some spelt) was went into the oven this morning!
The way bread normally works around here is that I make it, via the Ritual Question of Do You Have Any Breadferences (Bread Preferences). To facilitate this call and response, A List of our Usual Options, doubtless to be added to. Suggestions welcome. :)
( Read more... )
[embodiment] ... ha
Nov. 18th, 2025 10:52 pm"Ugh," I thought, "why am I feeling weirdly migrainey? My Next Phase Of The Menstrual Cycle is very much not due for like another week? I've been weirdly super regular basically since it reasserted itself post-surgery?"
... TURNS OUT that I had lost track of time a bit and I'm not a solid week early at all, it's a whole two days. This Means Some Things:
- ... still super regular by my pre-surgical standards,
- I will not be at the worst stage of my cycle during Significant Travel next week, and LAST BUT VERY MUCH NOT LEAST
- the migraine is still in fact very clearly associated with hormonal changes even when I'm not expecting them, take THAT Headache Is The Second Most Common Form Of Psychosomatic Pain ~statistics~ (and ongoing anxiety).