me_and | Reading

but 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.

kaberett

At 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... )

davidgillon

4AM-ish I wasn't asleep, and heard something which I couldn't work out if it was an aircraft or thunder.

So I popped open the bedroom window to see if it was any clearer that way, just caught the very end of it, and still couldn't tell.

I stood listening for a while, as it's rarely that quiet, and I could hear a freight train going past in the cutting down the hill - you can only really hear the trains at that time of night as otherwise they're drowned out by the traffic noise.

And then, for about 10 seconds, I heard the distinctive clip-clop, clip-clop of horse's hooves. WTF?

If you hear hoofbeats, suspect auditory illusions?

I have no idea what it actually was, but it sounded like hoofbeats. At 4AM.

Mood: Confuzzled
Location: In the still of the night

silveradept

Good day. Let's begin with 144 hours of DDR to make a record.

Early hominids appear to have not only used tools, but passed that knowledge down through the generations. Which will evolve the understanding of the earliest ancestors of the human species, as science is wont to do.

If you haven't received a flu vaccine for this year, it might be a good idea to do so, even if the protection might not be ideal because of a new mutation showing up after the formulation had been decided.

The complete history of the nation must be preserved, and that means a lot of places are trying to keep and digitize the collections of Black newspapers and broadsheets they have in their collections.

Also, Dick Cheney is no longer able to create a more terrible world, having died at 84 years of age. If his name is invoked from here on out, it should be as a warning not to do what he did.

( There's more inside, about people who have made cruelty the point and disclaim any responsibility of care for what they've created. )

Last out for tonight, an eyesore with a bad caricature and Randian-libertarian messaging is now providing a better message, since the land and the billboard were bought by the local Native nation.

And research now suggests that humans do instinctively work to help each other, rather than passively watch others be hurt, especially in emergency situations.

(Materials via

adrian_turtle,

azurelunatic,

boxofdelights,

cmcmck,

conuly,

cosmolinguist,

elf,

finch,

firecat,

jadelennox,

jenett,

jjhunter,

kaberett,

lilysea,

oursin,

rydra_wong,

snowynight,

sonia,

the_future_modernes,

thewayne,

umadoshi,

vass, the

meta_warehouse community,

little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)

Mood: busy
Music: Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness

kaberett

"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).

kaberett

~~... has done so many things and is Going To Bed and will fill in this placeholder Tomorrow.~~

Reading. ( Descartes, Gouldercourt et al., Clifford )

Forgotten Fruits (Christopher Stocks) got auto-returned to the library for a second time while I was still, like, a third of the way into it. I am going to try to take the DNF with grace this time, but the Completionist Itch is still there...

Writing. Grumpy e-mails to HMPO. Grumpy e-mails to uk.bookshop.org (on the plus side, the book I bought from them now has a shiny wee DRM-free tag! on the downside, I can download it in neither of the browsers I've tried so far.) Mental drafting of context-setting on movement and sleep, which really need to get out of my head and onto the page.

Playing. Inkulinati! We have Completed All Three Journeys. In the second stage we achieved an absolutely bullshit strategy that made things astonishingly easy; the third stage (with SEAL) was much harder work.

Little bit more I Love Hue.

Cooking. Two things of particular note, of which the first was ridiculous parsnip risotto with thyme pesto from The Modern Vegetarian, extremely good, would very happily eat again but I'm more dubious about the prospect of cooking it again, though I will concede it would probably go faster now I know what I'm doing.

Item the second was THE MEDLAR STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING. I am not entirely convinced I can actually detect the, you know, medlar, but it is very tasty.

Elsewise I have two batches of medlar jelly on the go (first batch did not set properly, BAH, I have not made enough jam recently, so I'm going to need to redecant and reboil that before I move on to the spiced) and some ridiculous quince sorbet that needs forcing through the sieve before churning.

And I have still not touched the apples.

Eating. Saturday lunch at Holtwhites Bakery :)

Exploring. Stupid little walk on Sunday revealed unto us, among other things: a pair of cyclamen in a bit of the verge outside our house we don't normally walk past; a discarded fork; a local bush of Purple Metallic Berries; a secret holly hedge.

Growing. SEEDS arrived. Jalapeños (at least at home) turning red.

kaberett

Irritatingly, the medlar jelly recipe I used last time I made the stuff, over at the RHS, is no longer extant (web.archive.org link!). Herewith my own readily findable copy of the thing, plus my notes on what I'm actually doing this time around.

(For amusement: I apparently first found the medlar sticky toffee pudding recipe in 2023...)

( Recipe as written )

( Notes )

azurelunatic

The washer saga ended a little while ago, with a brand repair tech who corrected something simple. Thursday night (the start of Friday wash day) the dryer gave up.

Since the dryer had been leaving unsightly rust streaks on all the lights, I have not been subtle in my campaign for a new one.

Delivery is scheduled for today, of a dryer with a steam cycle but without wifi.

kareila

Despite not having much scheduled this week, it was still pretty busy. Robby & I got our second shingles shots, and Will got new glasses, and Connor registered for his spring classes, etc etc.

He's signed up for Calculus II, Computer Science II, Advanced English Composition, Introduction to Creative Writing, and a one-hour-per-week freshman class called "Research for All" that sounds relevant to his interests. More to the point from my perspective, he will have 8AM classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays (this term nothing was earlier than 9AM), but three days out of five he will be done with his classes by noon. So I can continue to take him to campus a couple of times a week without having to find a place to camp out for the entire day.

Will still isn't ready to go back. Lately he's been helping out by unpacking boxes of childhood stuff and making decisions about what to keep and what to toss. We still need to get him another set of bookshelves for his room. Maybe we'll find the time while Connor's out of school for Thanksgiving break, or after he's done with his finals in mid-December.

The Banana Ball league scheduled a game for Rickwood next year, and I'm really hoping to be able to get tickets. They're bringing two new teams, and one of them is going to have Red Sox legend Jackie Bradley Jr. on their roster. I'm so excited for him!

I'm starting to get interested in the NFL again now that the Patriots have gotten their act together, and Bo Nix is having another good year with Denver. And I'll be able to start watching college basketball now that ESPN and Youtube TV have finally settled their differences after a two-week-long blackout.

Tomorrow night, Connor and I are going to see the high school's fall play, which is a production of Harvey. Then next week is going to be busy again. I get to take my car to the dealership for maintenance, and that's almost always an ordeal.

Mood: tired

kaberett

... Nor shall I say what objects of vision must be agreeable or disagreeable to it; for from what I have already said about the other senses, it is easy to grasp that light that is too strong will injure the eyes and moderate light must refresh them; and that, amongst the colours, green, which consistss in the most moderate action (which by analogy one can speak of as the ratio 1:2), is like the octave among musical consonances, or like bread among the foods that one eats, that is, it is the most universally agreeable.⁴⁰

⁴⁰ What the basis of this remark is is unclear, and although various writers have made suggestions about the relations between colours and sounds, the attempt to quantify green on a par with an octave certainly cannot be sustained. It is worth noting that Descartes will later advice Elizabeth to rid her mind of sad thoughts by reflecting on the greenness of a wood (Descartes to Elizabeth, May/June 1645, AT iv. 220).

(trans. and footnote courtesy of Stephen Gaukroger.)

davidgillon

The House of Lords have been taking evidence on the Assisted Suicide Bill.

Disabled folk to Parliament: The possibility of being compelled into assisted suicide scares us

Pro-assisted suicide mob to Parliament: a few disabled people coerced into assisted suicide is still worth it.

Honestly couldn't make it up

Mood: Grrrrr!

davidgillon

After three days in a row of not getting to sleep until after the sun was up (and then being woken mid-morning), I've basically spent the entire day asleep, apart from answering several phone calls from my sister and then almost immediately falling asleep again*.

I answered those sitting cross-legged on the bed, and I fell asleep in that position and then slept that way for several hours. My hips are NOT happy with me.

* I was particularly impressed that I picked up the thread of a dream I'd been having before one call afterwards. Strange dream for me, unusually non-action movie style.

Mood: Ow!
Location: Not cross-legged, much

kaberett

[cn time-restricted eating.]

( Read more... )

kaberett

( Read more... )

kaberett

I will grudgingly concede that the ridiculously overengineered parsnip risotto from The Modern Vegetarian is actually very tasty and it's very obvious that without the THREE DIFFERENT PREPARATIONS OF PARSNIP it would also be significantly less Parsnip. It is not, however, sufficient to convince me to update The Risotto Rule. But, as I say, it's very tasty and we have at least another day (possibly two?) of it, which I am cheerful about as a concept!
Blessedly my repeat prescription request had made it to the pharmacy by the time I swung by to pick up A's IOU and a new thing, so I won't need to make any more trips there ~~this week, at any rate~~.
Chillis in the greenhouse that I really need to bring home before I lose the gamble on frost are looking happy still despite a week+ of neglect.
Through hunting duvet covers (the one I bought for myself when I first moved out of the Den of Christians and into My Own Flat, in very early 2014, has tragically failed catastrophically) I have been reminded of the existence of incredibly gaudy (watercolours of) tulips, and I'm probably not going to spend slightly silly money on watercolour stripy tulips, but I'm very glad they exist.
We are continuing to Really Enjoy playing Inkulinati together, and I now definitely have enough grasp of the mechanics to collaborate on What We Wanna Do Next. One level fits quite neatly into some of the slightly awkward chunks of time in our week; I am looking forward to tomorrow's. <3

davidgillon

Me, Last night: It's bloody freezing in here!

Me, this morning: It's not bad, but still colder than it should be. Maybe I should check the central heating?

Central Heating: Look at all my pretty blinkenlights!

Me: It's probably the water pressure, I'll need to top up the system, but I need to warm up first

So I go put the fan heater on in the living room until the room is nice and toasty and I warm up

Warmed up, check the pressure: 0 Bar.

So I turn the awkward little knob underneath that lets water into the system (not the nice big handle next to it that doesn't) and fill the system to 2 Bar. Turn the system on, blinkenlights keep flashing

Me: I'll give it quarter of an hour to sort itself out

Quarter of an hour passes

Central Heating: Pretty blinkenlights!!

Me, still cold: Hmm, that big red blinkenlight says 'reset', it couldn't be? Yes, it's also a button.

Me, after pressing the reset light/button and an obvious restart: I'll give it quarter of an hour to sort itself out

Another quarter of an hour passes

Central Heating: Pretty, pretty blinkenlights!!

Me, still still cold: Bugger, must be something -- oh, you idiot!!!

Walk into still toasty living room, pick thermostat up and carry it into kitchen

Central Heating: Oh, wow, it's cold in here, hang on a minute and I'll get that sorted

*headdesk*

Mood: Warmer

kaberett

Celebrating. Anniversary. <3

Reading. ( Ravindran, Link, Stocks )

I have also: been skimming a variety of pain-related academic publications, and: printed out not one but TWO translations of Treatise on Man for the coming week's work reading.

Playing. Things!

Gently pootling along in I Love Hue.
Inkulinati! Delighted by having made it along the High Combat route on the second map page of my journey with... really minimal damage sustained; also very pleased that having worked through most of the Academy and now having made Progress on my Journey I now have enough of an understanding of mechanics that Proper Shared Activity is viable. (... had a Very satisfying Pushing A Helmeted Dog Off Its Level when it had considerately broken down a neutral gate for me.)
Fluxx! A particularly ridiculous game, that spent a whole bunch of time Draw 1 Play 1 and then suddenly exploded into Draw 3, Play All, Rich Bonus, Poor Bonus, Party Bonus, and Inflation, among others.

Cooking. Um. Three things from [the Roti King cookbook]9https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/466240/roti-king-by-sugen-gopal/9781837832118)! Surprised by how Very Into the beetroot thingy I was, and the pumpkin stew Grew On Me over the several days we spent eating it.

Also a tomato salad from East, which I was meh about -- but hey, that's one more thing crossed off that particular cookbook list!

Eating. This weekend we have had Many Avocadoes (which are a Special Treat), and also A made me blueberry pancakes for breakfast this morning.

OH and a variety of Things To Share from The Artful Duke in Bromley: macaroni cheese not particularly exciting but also very definitely not Cold Sad Soup, and therefore very welcome; sweetcorn "ribs"; three bean chilli nacho Situation; halloumi fries with hot honey. This occasioned the realisation on my part that "hot honey" is upselling for "sweet chilli sauce", which I find very amusing.

And a big pile of tomatoes my mother sent us home with, along with a chunk of Schwarzbrot :)

Exploring. Bromley "zoo"!

Making & mending. ... I got one of A's mildly problematic fountain pens writing earlier today and then promptly made it stop again. Gonna keep poking at the nib. (Tines were misaligned. Fixed that but/and they are now also a bit too splayed for capillary action to work properly; I think this predated my starting to mess around with it...)

Growing. The Mystery Habanero fruit are getting bigger. I am extremely impatient about how much bigger I need to wait for them to get before I can taste one to see how bad an idea eating it neat was.

All the various patio saffron are coming up, but the trough do not seem to have any interest in flowering this year, so I am going to need to Have A Think about what to do to make them happier. Honestly the answer is probably "buy another bag of bulb compost and bury 'em deeper".

kaberett

( mild anaemia )

The other topic is Physio, and specifically a bunch of the stuff I've been doing courtesy of the (NHS) Lower Limbs Class I've been intermittently going to since the summer; I am finally managing to add Doing This Stuff Once A Week (Not At Class) into my routine, and in addition to just getting better at the exercises themselves I have noticed repeatedly this week that I'm finding getting up from e.g. being sat on the beanbag much easier.

( a little more on exercise )

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Meandering on

Always learning, never knowing

this post is not Descartes apologia

[food] breadferences

Well that was weird

Only a little bit behind - Early November 02025

[embodiment] ... ha

vital functions

[food] medlar jelly recipe

Alas, dryer

checking in

[pain] today in Descartes: green is the best colour because it is most like an octave

Department of Couldn't Make It Up

Well, that was sub-optimal

[embodiment] still a terrible hobby

some good things make a post

some things make a post

In which I am a bear of little brain.

vital functions

[embodiment] notes various

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