kaberett | vital functions

Reading. Probabilitea, John Chu. It was John Chu; it was familial relationships and the ethics of influence and choice, and also friendship; it was hopeful and loving and I loved it.

Cassandra Draws the Four of Cups, Ruthanna Emrys. This was a little eh to my tastes, but I can see why people might love it.

The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods, Maria Dahvana Headley. This frustrated me: I thought the opening was breathtaking, and I think I liked how it wrapped itself up, but there were moments where the metaphor twisted in ways that -- I couldn't tell if it was me not understanding, or the author not noticing.

The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington, Phenderson Djèlí Clark. Excellent.

This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I am definitely enjoying this! I am pretty sure there's lots I'm missing or not taking in with the text, and I suspect I want to reread! I have a lot of questions about the worldbuilding. In summary, so far, half way through: this gets me right in the loyalty and offering feelings, and it's beautiful, even if I do think it sometimes gets a little tangled up in its own descriptiveness.

Watching. Planet Earth: caves

oh no he's trying to make it dramatic

our planet's FINAL FRONTIER where ONLY THE MOST ADVENTUROUS DARE TO GO

yes okay cave diving is a thing did you have a point (fin eparachuting; 400m deep shaft, in Mexico)

caves??? the least explored places on Earth??? really???? WHAT ABOUT THE OCEAN FLOORS

Hi Waitomo

Limestone Is The Reason For The Season, apparently (which I had somehow not registered? at lost not as the sole cause? hmmmmmm have I just forgotten my GCSE geography)

there are An Awful Lot Of Humans in this episode and I am Bored of them I want more Aminals

Deer Cave in Borneo: huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge underground river (though I guess we have already had our first bats)
THREE MILLION WRINKLE-LIPPED BATS
... Dramatic Cockroach Music (... oh dear bat you should not have fallen into the guano you got stuck)
I think the giant cave centipedes might be dragons
... the crabs are just crabs, though
oh no birb that eat a bat
... the bats form what appears to essentially be an aerial bait ball
rufous-bellied eagle, plus peregrine falcons and Bat Hawks -- okay this is quite impressive, like, I want to give the bats a hug? but Quite Impressive
hi Dramatic Music Human I think this is a little less charming than your usual Dramatics
other commuters: apparently we should admire The Day Shift, who sleep in the caves overnight -- the birds make Clicks to Find Way Through Cave In Darkness but like are we SURE they don't go donk. (cave switflets)
okay they make their nests from saliva!!! which... bird-nest soup??? but yes cup-like nests
-- right yes I am 100% correct they get turned into Tasty Soup (having taken 30 days to make, poor things)

DID U NO: STALACTITES

okay here's some flooded caves in Mexico
- cenotes, flooded entrances to water-filled caves, depended on by the Maya as region's only source of open fresh water
- Yucatán forest just like... shoves its roots down into the caves for funsies
- more than 350 miles of galleries etc have been mapped
- nobody knows the full extent of this waterworld... WITH GOOD REASON because it's VERY DANGEROUS (but we're notbeing told CROCODILES yet, just Underwater Caving Is Dangerous, which, yes, thank you)
- okay that was a good visual demonstration of Seems Like Air, Isn't: just another density of water (haloclines! apparently haloclines look REALLY COOL, awesome)
- ... hi a remipede "one of the most ancient of all living crustaceans"
- CAVE RAY CAVE RAY CAVE RAY
- most sea caves created by mechanical erosion not chemical -- oh right they're the Poor Knights Islands with CAVE RAYS again
- feesh

... okay and now we're back to bats, but also, Cave Python
- alright I'm enjoying the infrared footage of bats

"caves are like islands" YESSSSS ISOLATED GENETIC POOLS
- t r o g l o b i t e s
- cave angel fish live only in cave waterfalls in Two Of Cave
- Texas Cave Salamanders are my new best friend
- Belizean White Crab exists in one (1) cave AS FAR AS WE KNOW and is. um. alarming.
- lost pigment in skin!!! and also superfluous eyes!
- the salamanders have SUCH weird noodly little legs
- oh the fuzzy bits are its external gills, of course (which help with breathing in low-oxygen water)
- cave angel fish LEARN TO WALK (microscopic hooks on fins, VERY exciting, Music Human agrees)

Villa Luz cave in Mexico -- coloured white with sulphuric acid -- SURELY NO EXTREMOPHILES COULD LIVE HERE, HMMM
- lol okay I'm enjoying watching the humans suiting up with like respirators and Bonus Monitors
- BAAAAAAAAAAAAAATS live close to the skylights
- source is HS bubbling up from oil deposits then (surprise) reacts with water
- FEESH
- cave mollies -- low levels of oxygen, acid, DO A JUMP (jomp jomp jomp)
- The Life Is Not The Most Surprising Thing, says David. Nope, it's the Weird Woobly Stalactites -- "snottites" - which are less stalactites and more, uh, Colonies Of Bacteria that grow Centimetres A Day, okay, I'm alarmed
- they get eaten by midge larvae
- AN EVEN MORE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY!!!!!!!!

BEneath THis Arid Landscape Lies A Subterranean Wonderland
Without Water One Might Not Expct TO Find Any Caves
- rolling desert slopes of the US
- longest, deepest, Most Surprising caves in the world
- Its Secrets Remained Unknown Until 1986, when cavers Dug Through Loose Rok at the bottom of abit, because of COURSE they did
- Lechuguilla
- ~~~the most beautiful of all caves~~~
- The Most Exquisite Formations Ever Seen Underground
- The Walls Were Covered With The Mmost Dlicate And Fragile Crystals
- ... gypsum yeah okay checks out
- this cave hasbeen eroded not "by running rainwater" but...?
-- SOMETHING ELSE
-- DRAMATIC SOMETHING ELSE
-- The Only Water LEchuguilla Has Are These Wonderfully Still, Clear Pools
-- okay NOW we get some science: sulphuric acid!!! eroded the caves!!!! where'd it come from?GOOD QUESTION.
- I KNOW David Attnborough got trained about Including A Geologist For Scale
-- ~The Chandelier Ballroom~
- SURELY THE MOST BIZARRE CAVE CHAMBER IN THE WORLD -- no David you don't get to say that while also waxing lyrical about caves being the FINAL FRONTIER, like, wtf do YOU think they're going to find in the even less hospitable ones, either we have no idea or we don't, there's no "surely" about this
- okay lol they have extremophile bacteria feeding on the rock itself, that's quite entertaining
- oh good grief he even ACKNOWLEDGES that there may be EVEN MORE SUCH MARVELS still WAITING to be DISCOVERED

Diary:
- Most Unpleasant Working Conditions Was Caves
- because of the cockroaches and guano??? is that... it?
- Gomantong cave contains World's Largest Concentrations Of Cockroaches, and they spent a month filming in there
- bugs are VERY CURIOUS about the camera equipment
- OH NO A BAT SAT ON A HUMAN
- okay they are super proud of the Smooth Shot Panning Up The Mound of Guano, which is precisely the one that really did not work for me
- While Gomantong Was The Most Unpleasant Cave To Work In, Lechuguilla was the most nerve-wracking??? 150 foot descent into Pitch Black - "Freak-Out Traverse"
- "the last time someone broke an ankle down here, it took a team of over 100 expert cavers three days to get them out"
- "local experts recommend a maximum of five days below ground" ... but we spent 10 days because climbing back out is TEDIOUS
- awwwww turning the lights out to go to bed
- "first time a crew had ever been allowed to carry a crane into the cave"

fine it pretty.

Planet Earth: deserts

1/3 of planet is desert -- are we gonna get shown Antarctica or just the Good Sand Dunes? YES WE ARE GOOD hi Siberia

Wild Bactrian Camels can apparently cope with a 90degC temperature range in the Gobi desert!
- ooh! the snow just sublimates!!!!
- so they eat snow -- 10ly, little and often, vs 200l at a go at watering holes
- OH NO WHAT A TERRIBLE SEXY NOISE

oh for fuck's sake he's just claimed The Desert Sun is a constant presence NO IT ISN'T

... hiiiiii Kangaroo!!!
- ooh, they lick their forearms as analternative to sweating
- also dig away warmest topsoil
- "for most animals this wouldn't be enough" WHY NOT

fennec foxes have ears did u no
& spend days underground
- eyyyyyy playing fox fubs
- toads come out at night also, ditto scorpions, which the fox cubs think are the BEST THINGS
- ooh who are you

Atacama in Chile - driest desert in world
- guanacos eat cactus flowers for liquid
- where???? Do the cacti??? get water??? says David. FROM THEIR ROOTS, DAVID. FROM. THEIR ROOTS.
- no okay fair enough, cold sea current does the Here's Some Fog, which the cacti go NARM at
- I'm a fan of the moisture-loving lichens on the cacti
- also the BIRB and the FOPS
- further inland things don't condense

Sonoran desert, Arizona
- saguaros are Big Captus that Enjoy the Summer Monsoon
- okay the timelapse of the cactus step getting fatter is Very Good (can store up to 5 tonnes of water, apparently)
- trunks!!! are a home for the gila woodpecker!
- IMPORTANT DESERT BAP LONG-NOSED BATS EAT CACTuS FLOWER IN SuMMER
- they are migrating to the Southern US from Mexico!!
- Utah desert: did u no: rivers can ALSO shape land EVEN IN DESERTS it's NOT JUST THE SANDBLASTING
- Nubian Ibex do a Fight: subordinate male ibex Still Have Serious Fights because Losing One might mean No Sex Ever

LEEZARD LEEZARD COLOUR LEEZARD
- South African Flat Lizards
- what the FUCK
- they are ALARMING
- highest density of lizards??? in world???
- Dramatic River Secret Music because... flies live in them
- oh no ballet music for the Jumpy Flat Lizards [clip on Youtube]
- they are so inelegant
- that is not how you do a pirouette leezard
- this is EXTREMELY dramatic ballet music

"what actually kills aminals here is not heat or thirst but lack of food"
- elephant snoofle the ground with it nose
- loooooooooong nose
- Namibian elephamps are, so DAvid claims, The Touchest In Africa
- I want to scritch??? between its toes???
- "at times the task [of finding something to eat] looks truly hopeless", says David, as the camera pans across... a group of three elephants and a bunch of GREEN VEGETATION we're??? apparently ignoring??? for the drama???
- also in this landscape: lions oh dear
-- and a BAB
-- spotty legs!!!!
- in savannahs, lions live in prides of 20+; out here, they're smaller prides and larger home ranges
- "and there's another problem!!! their food!!!! is always on the move!!!"
- Lions Won't Attempt To Cross This Field Of Sand Dunes (And The Oryx Know It)
- okay the oryx have Good Pointy Faces
- okay we don't get told WHY they're just The Forbidden Sand Dunes
- which the oryx have to leave for food & water???
- okay now we're back to elephants
- I still want to scritch between their toes
- elephant favourite food: grass roots, apparently
- serious shortages... Yet All This Can Change In An Instant
- we made a river!!! they say. SURPRISE RIVER caused by DISTANT RAINS 100 miles away, goes fwoosh
-- flash flood, hurrah (once or twice a year at most, apparently)

Death Valley Is The Hottest PLace On Earth
But Let's Show You What Happens When It Rains
and then move on to Desert Locusts, which can hatch after lying dormant as eggs for 20 years...
- bit surprised we're not getting time-lapse photography of the plague of locusts

Diaries:
- Monoglian Gobi desert the most remote.
- The Most Challenging Of Shoots
- 2-month trip: 2-month supply of everything, including water.
- No Roads Or Maps Or Signs
- and in somewhere the size of Holland we're trying to find a group of animals that makes it up to 800 in a good year
- Choyjin The Tracker
- ... Russian-built supply vehicles needed warming up with a blowtorch in the morning, but engine could be rebuilt with... a file... in the middle of the desert
- "Our interpreter... decided to pick a fight with the stand-in head of the park and headbutted him in the face, which is not ideal for relations. Anyway, our driver, who was also very drunk, decided this was his chance to step in, and he's a big lad... he then punched our interpreter in the face and knocked him flat."
- camels Do Not Like You (being spotted from 5k distance) because Poaching is a Bad
- Oh No A Camel Died because Wolves which did Not Help, apparently, with managing a filming
- they're spotting the cars and extremely Nope about it (running up to 70km); people need to walk
- Lots of Camel Bums in the footage, I am delighted

Listening. Mooooore TMA, surprising no-one. Continuing to get flashes of intense sense-of-location when out and about and generally wandering.

Cooking. We made another batch of vanilla ice cream together! A was brave and Did The Vanilla Pods and also Fed The Machine and did most of scooping the resultant ice cream back out into a tub, so, ice cream!

I have so much glutinous rice flour, so we're also intending to have a go at ice cream mochi (using some of the vanilla and some of the black sesame), and maybe if I'm feeling really enthusiastic I'll cook up another batch of red bean and just make myself some red bean mochi.

Eating. Notably: raclette! Which was exciting, and appeared to feature (inexplicably?) a deep-fried strand of spaghetti. It was tasty! I was just... perplexed.

Making & mending. I have Observed that one of the sets of slipper socks needs darning again, and have put them aside for same. This is not actually equivalent to Having Fixed Them, but I've thought really hard about it, okay.

Growing. I began nervously attempting to harden off the nightshades a little in preparation for abandoning them to their own devices for a little while; currently the Warm Plant Box is going off during the day and getting turned back on overnight, in the hopes that I'll be able to move it to Off Entirely while I'm away for a bit (thereby reducing the volume of watering required...). Fingers crossed for them.

I also made it to the allotment on Friday! I fed the bin a lot! Via the magic of Going After Bloods And In The Rain, I achieved spending some time sorting out the interior of the greenhouse (which needs gently shunting back into a sensible shape after all the gales, whoops). And, to my very great excitement, two of the broad beans are still actively alive and flourishing (amusingly, the ones that started out shortest; the tallest ones have... struggled rather with the Weather). I might have a go at getting some more started.

Lemon: has not lost any more leaves this week, to the best of my knowledge.

Observing. SLEEPY BIRD OF PREY curled up in a tree with its head under its wing in a tree at the edge of a field bordering the Ridgeway! Probably a red kite, I think. I'm not sure I've ever consciously seen one stationary before.

A remarkable number of badger setts along the Eurostar embankments between getting back above ground and reaching the outskirts of Paris.

Playing. Caught a CRYOGONAL in the SNOW from my SOFA on Thursday morning.

Also achieved A Shiny Hatty Eevee, and was further very excited by hatching MY FIRST DWEBBLE. It's such a good little friend! It spits HF! I'm... kind of terrified of it!

Scrabble on the Eurostar with A, which was Great Fun.

Horn! I continue enjoying having been Doing More Practice: I'm having much more fun at orchestra rehearsals, and I'm a little surprised by how little focussed practice it is taking me to sort out specific phrases I'm struggling with. It's nice.

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From:

recessional

(do you do discord?)

kaberett

(Yes! But have not yet got as far as follow link and will attempt to get act together)

(oh did I send you the link like a smart person? I thought I had missed you. XD)

(oh! no it looks like I had in fact Not Executive Functioned what was going on, and now I've connected the two wossnames I would indeed be grateful for An Link! x)