vital functions
Aug. 4th, 2019 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. The Kingdom of Gods, NK Jemisin. Continues... internally inconsistent in ways that honestly would benefit from more exposition. There are canon queers? And genderfluid characters? But e.g. if in three generations everything has gone sufficiently to shit that basic food and lodging is no longer supplied to All Citizens then that... might... bear actually spelling out slightly more explicitly, s i g h. But yes, fine, I read all of it and it was exactly the escapism I wanted, so hurrah for that.
Daring Greatly, Brené Brown, round two (because last time I got less than 10% of the way through it before it was due back at the library). I... am having a lot of feelings about this, and it's going to get its own post, but: I'm about thirty pages in, I have almost a full page of notes/quotes/&c already, I'm having to do a bunch of recontextualising and reframing from the basic principles presented in order to make it applicable to me but my goodness is it useful, and I have every intention of writing up a proper post once I'm done. Though given how much I'm having to stop and think I may yet have to just buy myself a copy.
Watching. The Blue Planet: Frozen Seas. SEALS ARE SO GOOD. Also penguins. Also BELUGA. A's unambiguous favourite was the penguins waiting for a wave to slosh them up high enough that they could make it onto a useful bit of iceberg or island, closely followed by them launching themselves bodily out of the water via aggressive acceleration; I am not entirely sure what mine was but it was good.
Elementary: pretty much all I have to say is !!! ...? !
Listening. The Patrick Wolf and early P!nk albums I picked up at a charity shop early in the week... but in the car, so more as background than as a thing I managed to pay attention to.
Cooking. I am very much enjoying having a buttermilk culture on the go; it got to 10pm on Thursday, I realised there was no way I was making sourdough for breakfast on Friday, and got soda bread out of the oven (with new oven seal!) shortly before A got home from An Errand.
The other major culinary adventure of the week has been Okay So Can I Make Instant Pot Yoghurt Then. I... sort of suspected it was going to taste a bit of dahl or refried beans and I'm going to need to scour the inner pan out before the next adventure in same, but actually it was remarkably edible, by and large, though better once it had been chilled. Major problem was, I think, that I let condensation from the boiling of the milk drip back into the pan as I was removing the lid, as I'd been firmly instructed not to, and that does indeed appear to cause a problem. I could fix this by straining the yog but that honestly sounds like A Lot of effort, and I could just Not.
The major culinary misadventure of the week involved globe artichokes, from the allotment, over which we shall draw a discreet veil. I learned several things. I'm trying to work out how to salvage the remainder of the stew.
Exploring. Went round a couple of bits of the NHM withchildoftheair, during their visit, and in consequence learned:
Creating. As mentioned, I spent some of Saturday messing around with watercolour pencils and am now resolved to actually spend some money on them (and indeed to pick up some paintbrushes from a charity shop that currently has a bunch).
I have a structure for at least one of the talks I'm giving next weekend.
Growing. I have missed most of the first round of raspberries through being too crazy to make it to the allotment, alas, but I HAVE harvested around half a dozen artichokes (with more to come) and, er, I had Plans for them involving a tomato stew, which turned out... interesting.
I need to encourage the strawberry runners into their pots a little more firmly.
Holy basil is starting to grow its first pair of true leaves!
Observing. Another Jersey Tiger moth! And on my way home from the allotment on Thursday night I saw the GARDEN FROG. Also several bat.
And FIVE BABY COOT, big enough now to be venturing out of the nest and yelling angrily until the sky produced food. Very industrious and enthusiastic paddling, yes yes.
Poking. I... completely failed to register when Community Day was, which I'm a bit sad about because (1) I'm a fan of Ralts and (2) the shinies were BLUE, but I did get one Gardevoir with the special moveset (from a Kirlia I caught earlier...) and I suppose I'll likely have another chance at the end of the week, ah well. Notable catches: a 100%-once-purified Rattata, thank you Team Rocket, and similarly a high-IV Golbat; a 91% Lucky Rhyhorn traded from A; a wild-caught 96% Shellos (!; pink) and 96% Aipom (level 35), which latter I am actually willing to contemplate spending a Sinnoh stone on evolving.
Daring Greatly, Brené Brown, round two (because last time I got less than 10% of the way through it before it was due back at the library). I... am having a lot of feelings about this, and it's going to get its own post, but: I'm about thirty pages in, I have almost a full page of notes/quotes/&c already, I'm having to do a bunch of recontextualising and reframing from the basic principles presented in order to make it applicable to me but my goodness is it useful, and I have every intention of writing up a proper post once I'm done. Though given how much I'm having to stop and think I may yet have to just buy myself a copy.
Watching. The Blue Planet: Frozen Seas. SEALS ARE SO GOOD. Also penguins. Also BELUGA. A's unambiguous favourite was the penguins waiting for a wave to slosh them up high enough that they could make it onto a useful bit of iceberg or island, closely followed by them launching themselves bodily out of the water via aggressive acceleration; I am not entirely sure what mine was but it was good.
Elementary: pretty much all I have to say is !!! ...? !
Listening. The Patrick Wolf and early P!nk albums I picked up at a charity shop early in the week... but in the car, so more as background than as a thing I managed to pay attention to.
Cooking. I am very much enjoying having a buttermilk culture on the go; it got to 10pm on Thursday, I realised there was no way I was making sourdough for breakfast on Friday, and got soda bread out of the oven (with new oven seal!) shortly before A got home from An Errand.
The other major culinary adventure of the week has been Okay So Can I Make Instant Pot Yoghurt Then. I... sort of suspected it was going to taste a bit of dahl or refried beans and I'm going to need to scour the inner pan out before the next adventure in same, but actually it was remarkably edible, by and large, though better once it had been chilled. Major problem was, I think, that I let condensation from the boiling of the milk drip back into the pan as I was removing the lid, as I'd been firmly instructed not to, and that does indeed appear to cause a problem. I could fix this by straining the yog but that honestly sounds like A Lot of effort, and I could just Not.
The major culinary misadventure of the week involved globe artichokes, from the allotment, over which we shall draw a discreet veil. I learned several things. I'm trying to work out how to salvage the remainder of the stew.
Exploring. Went round a couple of bits of the NHM with
childoftheair, during their visit, and in consequence learned:- we know about herding dinosaurs via trace fossils (i.e. fossilised tracks left by animals), which is obvious in retrospect but I'd utterly failed to put together
- there is an actual example of dinosaurs mid-fight in the fossil record (because they got caught in a sandstorm)
- Parasaurolophus might? have used its head crests? to yell through? in that they're hollow bony tubes connected to its nostrils that it could probably use as a trumpet???
- it's hypothesised that the enormous herbivores might have used heat generated by decomposing vegtation in their stomachs to keep them warm (compare with the piles-of-rotting-vegetation used to incubate eggs by alligators, cassowaries, etc)
- location and degree of damage to fossilised egg shells gives us information about how quickly hatchlings left the nest
Creating. As mentioned, I spent some of Saturday messing around with watercolour pencils and am now resolved to actually spend some money on them (and indeed to pick up some paintbrushes from a charity shop that currently has a bunch).
I have a structure for at least one of the talks I'm giving next weekend.
Growing. I have missed most of the first round of raspberries through being too crazy to make it to the allotment, alas, but I HAVE harvested around half a dozen artichokes (with more to come) and, er, I had Plans for them involving a tomato stew, which turned out... interesting.
I need to encourage the strawberry runners into their pots a little more firmly.
Holy basil is starting to grow its first pair of true leaves!
Observing. Another Jersey Tiger moth! And on my way home from the allotment on Thursday night I saw the GARDEN FROG. Also several bat.
And FIVE BABY COOT, big enough now to be venturing out of the nest and yelling angrily until the sky produced food. Very industrious and enthusiastic paddling, yes yes.
Poking. I... completely failed to register when Community Day was, which I'm a bit sad about because (1) I'm a fan of Ralts and (2) the shinies were BLUE, but I did get one Gardevoir with the special moveset (from a Kirlia I caught earlier...) and I suppose I'll likely have another chance at the end of the week, ah well. Notable catches: a 100%-once-purified Rattata, thank you Team Rocket, and similarly a high-IV Golbat; a 91% Lucky Rhyhorn traded from A; a wild-caught 96% Shellos (!; pink) and 96% Aipom (level 35), which latter I am actually willing to contemplate spending a Sinnoh stone on evolving.