vital functions is once again a placeholder

[kaberett]

... to be expanded on tomorrow. <3 ("Tomorrow" was a lie; travel apparently took it out of me more than somewhat! So here I am instead on Sunday the 7^th of December...)

Reading. Treatise on Man, Descartes trans. Stephen Gaukroger. Very helpful, in that I now have a lot of opinions about what Descartes said that seem to be... decidedly in conflict with Received Wisdom about What Descartes Said. But, like, in such a way that I can see how they got there (by focussing on one paragraph in isolation) and can meaningfully argue that they're all wrong (based on the rest of the text). (Frustratingly many of the key passages supporting my interpretation are omitted from the other translation I have ready access to -- Cottingham -- and while my academic French is up to 1860s chemistry, I am not going to try reading the original text. In either language.)

Pain, Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen. See next week for details.

Watching. We were visiting some of A's folk and their habit involves much more film watching than we normally get around to! Consequently I have rewatched Knives Out and The Glass Onion (which latter I think I actually liked more on rewatch than on my first go through, even if I do have ongoing quibbles with fiction that doesn't give you enough information that you can reasonably put clues together yourself before The Reveal Sequence), Kinky Boots (never seen it before and LOVED IT), and The Intouchables (also never seen it before, mildly impressed at what a solid go it made at being ~heartwarming~ despite all the workplace sexual harassment and, of course, the fundamental "millionaire pays immigrant to perform personal care work" of it all).

Playing. Inkulinati! Lots more thereof.

Also new-to-me games Rummikub (note "In Turkey, the game is known as [Okey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okey^{[citation needed]}") and Five Crowns. Extremely impressed with myself for picking both of these up via verbal instructions only without any panic attacks.

Eating. POMEGRANATES and ORANGES from the GARDEN.

Halfway up a mountain, at an overpriced restaurant: .lavendar sütlaç (rice pudding) with hazelnut (and pistachio) crumb. Very glad to have tried that.

Variously elsewise: Basque cheesecake in a café in Seydikemer; menemen; a return visit to Yalcin Apart ve Yoruk Müzesi; sigara böreği cooked by A's stepmum (and also chips! separately) (and mulberries, frozen, from her orchard).

And on the trip out, we had Second Breakfast in the airport at Comptoir Libanais, where I have not eaten since I was doing lab work regularly (volunteers to make sure I actually ate a meal on long lab days got dinner bought for them and this was one of the regularly-visited options). I dithered but did wind up coming down on the side of getting the Lebanese Spiced Hot Chocolate ("Hot chocolate with steamed milk infused with cinnamon & tahina sprinkled with halva") and it was amazing.

Overall fewer simit than I would ideally like on the trip, and way more digestive upset, but still overall DELIGHTFUL.

Exploring. Şehit Fehti Bey Parkı (SNAIL SCULPTURES (); local-to-that Tuesday Market feat. PERSIMMONS and ROSE BUDS FOR TEA and YOGHURT SERVED BY THE HALF KILO, and also many good ducks, and also so many quince and tiny medlar and many many other things; Babadağ Teleferik up to the 1200m station, where there was an utter lack of the kind of Walks For Tourists that I expected BUT we nonetheless met Some Very Good Dogs and also so many Quercus ilex; and the ancient city of Tlos, which I would very much like to visit again in future with a slightly more cooperative body. And of course the agricultural museum at Yalçin!

Observing. WE FOUND A BAT on an evening Stupid Little Walk to Get My Stupid Steps. Also GOATS and SQUASH and infinite cats and so on and so forth, but we were definitely most excited about the BAT.

Comments

[vass]

Kinky Boots (never seen it before and LOVED IT)
Isn't it good?