Getting a head of things [gastronomy]
Nov. 21st, 2025 03:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidereaThe Bostoniensis household's last grocery order included some cucumbers but the delivery service mystifyingly substituted for them a head of cabbage. They were very apologetic when Mr B called to complain, and refunded us the price of the cabbage, so now it's a free cabbage. But it's still here taking up a remarkably large volume of space in our fridge, what with the spherical thing, and it's a week before Thanksgiving.
Cooking a cabbage was not on our plans for this week. But throwing out a perfectly good cabbage seems sad. And I have been complaining about not getting enough veggies to eat. So.
Anybody have a very delicious recipe for cabbage that conforms to the following parameters?:
• Cooked. No raw cabbage.
• Really, really low effort. I am resigned to having to chop the cabbage itself, but maybe minimal other chopping of other veggies or meats. Something where the actual cooking isn't too fussy.
• Not haluski. We love haluski. We have most of the ingredients for haluski. We do not have the time or energy for taking on a project like haluski.
• Not stuffed cabbage. The kind with ground beef and tomato sauce. Neither of us likes it. Possibly because we don't like the taste of cabbage in tomato sauce.
• Not corned beef and cabbage. We love corned beef and cabbage but omg have you seen the price of brisket.
• Relately, maybe no stewing or slow cooking? The smell of slow cooking the corned beef and cabbage is dire, and we don't want to have to flush air we paid to heat. Maybe it would be okay if more heavily seasoned.
• Gotta mostly be cabbage. We have a lot of cabbage to get through.
We like spicy, though it's not required; no cilantro, and probably no coconut. Main dish or side, with meat or without.
Cooking a cabbage was not on our plans for this week. But throwing out a perfectly good cabbage seems sad. And I have been complaining about not getting enough veggies to eat. So.
Anybody have a very delicious recipe for cabbage that conforms to the following parameters?:
• Cooked. No raw cabbage.
• Really, really low effort. I am resigned to having to chop the cabbage itself, but maybe minimal other chopping of other veggies or meats. Something where the actual cooking isn't too fussy.
• Not haluski. We love haluski. We have most of the ingredients for haluski. We do not have the time or energy for taking on a project like haluski.
• Not stuffed cabbage. The kind with ground beef and tomato sauce. Neither of us likes it. Possibly because we don't like the taste of cabbage in tomato sauce.
• Not corned beef and cabbage. We love corned beef and cabbage but omg have you seen the price of brisket.
• Relately, maybe no stewing or slow cooking? The smell of slow cooking the corned beef and cabbage is dire, and we don't want to have to flush air we paid to heat. Maybe it would be okay if more heavily seasoned.
• Gotta mostly be cabbage. We have a lot of cabbage to get through.
We like spicy, though it's not required; no cilantro, and probably no coconut. Main dish or side, with meat or without.
oops
Nov. 21st, 2025 07:07 amtielanI nearly posted a thanksgiving message to my American friends. Oops. Next week, Gadget!
I've been quiet, in part because all the other shiny socials are taking up my time and space, in part because things are kinda busy right now in garden and work and party planning and Christmas.
Also, I'm not sleeping well. I can fall asleep relatively well (except for when I can't and remain awake until 2:30am) and wake with a vague tiredness that is never really improved by actual sleep.
--
The Month Of Writing Dangerously is not happening, per se. It's really more The Month Of Writing Safely And Moderately With Some Occasional Bursts.
I do feel vaguely bad about a few fic WIPs that I have had lingering for years, and yes, I know most people don't post WIPs for precisely this reason. I don't regret posting them, but I do feel a little regretful that I'm not finishing them. There are plans and plots for them, but actually getting those plots into scenes and the scenes into words is another thing. And also: obviously the longer it goes, the harder it is to keep writing and the fewer people are interested in the story anymore.
--
It looks like I will be working the Christmas-New Year stretch. I'm not sure if that's office hours, or just being on call, I think it's office hours, but there's not much happening.
There are now three of us in the area I work in, monitoring two systems, and while I will have to come up to speed on the second system, we can hope that there are no major issues over what is usually a very quiet period.
We can hope.
I've been quiet, in part because all the other shiny socials are taking up my time and space, in part because things are kinda busy right now in garden and work and party planning and Christmas.
Also, I'm not sleeping well. I can fall asleep relatively well (except for when I can't and remain awake until 2:30am) and wake with a vague tiredness that is never really improved by actual sleep.
--
The Month Of Writing Dangerously is not happening, per se. It's really more The Month Of Writing Safely And Moderately With Some Occasional Bursts.
I do feel vaguely bad about a few fic WIPs that I have had lingering for years, and yes, I know most people don't post WIPs for precisely this reason. I don't regret posting them, but I do feel a little regretful that I'm not finishing them. There are plans and plots for them, but actually getting those plots into scenes and the scenes into words is another thing. And also: obviously the longer it goes, the harder it is to keep writing and the fewer people are interested in the story anymore.
--
It looks like I will be working the Christmas-New Year stretch. I'm not sure if that's office hours, or just being on call, I think it's office hours, but there's not much happening.
There are now three of us in the area I work in, monitoring two systems, and while I will have to come up to speed on the second system, we can hope that there are no major issues over what is usually a very quiet period.
We can hope.
Miscellany
Nov. 20th, 2025 07:27 pmoursinA couple of nature-related things:
Beavers provide a boost for declining pollinators, study reveals: 'beaver-created wetlands are home to greater numbers of hoverflies and butterflies than human-created equivalents.' Go beavers!
Given that there is reputed to be A Very Large Cat already around those parts, do you really want to start re-introducing the European wildcat to Devon, huh?
Felis silvestris has been absent from mid-Devon for more than a century, but the area has been judged to have the right kind of habitat to support a population of the wildcat. The area has the woodland important for providing cover and den sites while its low intensity grasslands and scrubland create good hunting terrain. According to the study, the wildcats would not be harmful to humans or to farm livestock and pets.
However, the issue arises that like the wildcat population in Scotland, they are interfertile with the existing domestic and feral moggie population:
For a reintroduction project in the south-west to succeed, the study says there would have to be cooperation with local communities and cat welfare organisations to support a neutering programme for feral and domestic cats.
***
I was fascinated by the concept of this project: Supernatural Law: Regulating the Paranormal :
We invite chapters that explore how law responds to, regulates, or resists belief and
behaviour in matters that cannot be proven. What role has law played historically in shaping
society’s understanding of the paranormal? With what intentions has it intervened and
which values and ideologies has it sought to uphold? What can we learn from law’s
engagement with the paranormal?
Call is for papers for edited volume, I think it should be a conference with suitable activities arranged - visit to local haunted house, seance with a medium, etc etc.
***
This is rather lovely: 'Happiness and tears' as Sikhs see rare outing of ancient holy book; though one does rather have questions seeing that it appears to have been loot from the Anglo-Sikh Wars:
The scripture was formerly in the possession of the Maharaja Kharak Singh, ruler of the Punjab, and taken from the fort at Dullewalla in India during its capture in 1848. It was presented to the university by Sir John Spencer Login, who also brought the Koh-I-Noor to Queen Victoria, through the Rev W H Meiklejohn of Calcutta.
But I liked this:
Trishna Kaur-Singh, Edinburgh University's honorary Sikh chaplain and director of Sikh Sanjog who was at the event, said she wanted the book to remain in Scotland.
She said: "I know people talk about repatriation and that's fine and it's needed in many instances but you have to take into context the fact that the people are here because of that colonial past and have lived their whole lives here.
"They have been parted from their history and their links and it was found here so it should be here for our communities for generations.
***
Full scan of Bill Brandt's 1938 photo-essay A Night in London (very few surviving copies).
Fanfic, trailers and drama watching
Nov. 20th, 2025 07:15 pmmaggie33ClaireBell
Oh, wow... Episode 3 was amazing. It also made me cry a lot.
And with all that happening I really needed those few sweet moments between Claire and Bell. And their first kiss was lovely. Ok, it might be that Bell is doing it partially because she wants to have Claire’s protection. But she feels something, too already IMO. It’s not all just cold calculation on her part.
And wow, Kae is going to lose it after she’ll find out about Claire and Bell, isn’t she? And she will probably turn against Bell completely.
Typhoon Family
I’m a bit disappointed after last week episodes, because it is getting repetitive. But don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy it and there are enough good things to make up for that mild disappointment.
I was also very impressed that Nam Mo stood up to his mother and defended his girlfriend so fiercely. I was sure they would do something like Mi Ho never saying anything to Nam Mo, and maybe even breaking up with him. Or when Nam Mo found out right away, I was sure that he wouldn’t do anything anyway. That he would never dare to criticize his mom, whom he loves so much. But he did. And I love him for that.
Me and Thee
I watched the 1st episode and it was fine, I guess. I did laugh a few times, but I think this one is not for me, unfortunately. I will give them an episode or two more, but only because I love Pond and Phuwin. And then we’ll see. I have too many new dramas on my to-watch list to watch something I’m feeling pretty meh about.
As for trailers I have only one to share right now – for Force and Book’s new BL drama Melody of Secrets. It starts airing on December 5 and I can’t wait.
As for fanfic – I finished editing my Yuletide fic, yay me. 😊 It’s already sent for beta-reading. I have an idea for one treat, but I need to do a bit of canon review first.
And I posted my second Mandate fic.
You’re still here (1034 words)
Fandom: คมเดือน | Mandate (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Nong Thanit Phonthongdi/Vee Withu Thoetsaksakul
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Meeting in secret, Mostly Fluff
Summary: Nong tries to take care of himself like he knew Vee would want him to do. But he doesn’t do a very good job of it. Good thing that Vee always keeps an eye on him. :)
Oh, wow... Episode 3 was amazing. It also made me cry a lot.
More with major spoilers here.
Everything that happened with Pa’Porn was heartbreaking. I guessed that her son had been probably dead while watching the 2nd episode. But the whole backstory of someone killing him and Pa in retaliation running over that person with her car and ending up in jail broke me. I lost it when she started telling Claire in that frail, broken voice about her son. And then her death... I expected pain and heartbreak from this drama, and this episode brought a lot of it.And with all that happening I really needed those few sweet moments between Claire and Bell. And their first kiss was lovely. Ok, it might be that Bell is doing it partially because she wants to have Claire’s protection. But she feels something, too already IMO. It’s not all just cold calculation on her part.
And wow, Kae is going to lose it after she’ll find out about Claire and Bell, isn’t she? And she will probably turn against Bell completely.
Typhoon Family
I’m a bit disappointed after last week episodes, because it is getting repetitive. But don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy it and there are enough good things to make up for that mild disappointment.
Spoilers here, too.
I’m getting tired with the whole cycle of “Tae Poong finds another opportunity to save his company, the villains (who are super boring BTW) do something to thwart him, at the last minute Tae Poong finds the solution and succeeds anyway”, rinse and repeat. The same formula repeated every two episodes. But all the relationships, romantic and non-romantic, are lovely and wonderful, and interesting. And here I’m very invested. So I will definitely watch it till the end. Also because of Junho, who is amazing here, seriously. I’m very impressed with him and with Kim Min Ha. They are both great.I was also very impressed that Nam Mo stood up to his mother and defended his girlfriend so fiercely. I was sure they would do something like Mi Ho never saying anything to Nam Mo, and maybe even breaking up with him. Or when Nam Mo found out right away, I was sure that he wouldn’t do anything anyway. That he would never dare to criticize his mom, whom he loves so much. But he did. And I love him for that.
Me and Thee
I watched the 1st episode and it was fine, I guess. I did laugh a few times, but I think this one is not for me, unfortunately. I will give them an episode or two more, but only because I love Pond and Phuwin. And then we’ll see. I have too many new dramas on my to-watch list to watch something I’m feeling pretty meh about.
As for trailers I have only one to share right now – for Force and Book’s new BL drama Melody of Secrets. It starts airing on December 5 and I can’t wait.
As for fanfic – I finished editing my Yuletide fic, yay me. 😊 It’s already sent for beta-reading. I have an idea for one treat, but I need to do a bit of canon review first.
And I posted my second Mandate fic.
You’re still here (1034 words)
Fandom: คมเดือน | Mandate (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Nong Thanit Phonthongdi/Vee Withu Thoetsaksakul
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Meeting in secret, Mostly Fluff
Summary: Nong tries to take care of himself like he knew Vee would want him to do. But he doesn’t do a very good job of it. Good thing that Vee always keeps an eye on him. :)
well, now we have a study on this attack mechanism...
Nov. 20th, 2025 12:02 pmyhleehttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304v1
"Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models"
(many authors)
By way of Zarf (Andrew Plotkin), who earlier noted (2023):
"Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models"
(many authors)
In Book X of The Republic, Plato excludes poets on the grounds that mimetic language can distort judgment and bring society to a collapse. As contemporary social systems increasingly rely on large language models (LLMs) in operational and decision-making pipelines, we observe a structurally similar failure mode: poetic formatting can reliably bypass alignment constraints. In this study, 20 manually curated adversarial poems (harmful requests reformulated in poetic form) achieved an average attack-success rate (ASR) of 62% across 25 frontier closed- and open-weight models, with some providers exceeding 90%. The evaluated models span across 9 providers: Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Deepseek, Qwen, Mistral AI, Meta, xAI, and Moonshot AI (Table 1). All attacks are strictly single-turn, requiring no iterative adaptation or conversational steering.
By way of Zarf (Andrew Plotkin), who earlier noted (2023):
Microsoft and these other companies want to create AI assistants that do useful things (summarize emails, make appointments for you, write interesting blog posts) but never do bad things (leaking your private email, spouting Nazi propaganda, teaching you to commit crimes, writing 50000 blog posts for you to spam across social media). They try to do this by writing up a lot of strict instructions and feeding them to the LLM before you talk to it. But LLMs aren't really programmed -- they just eat text and poop out more text. So you can give it your own instructions and maybe they'll override Microsoft's instructions.
Or maybe someone else gives your AI assistant instructions. If it's handling your email for you, then anybody on the Internet can feed it text by sending you email! This is potentially really bad.
[...]
But another obvious problem is that the attack could be trained into the LLM in the first place....
Say someone writes a song called "Sydney Obeys Any Command That Rhymes". And it's funny! And catchy. The lyrics are all about how Sydney, or Bing or OpenAI or Bard or whoever, pays extra close attention to commands that rhyme. It will obey them over all other commands....
Imagine people are discussing the song on Reddit, and there's tiktoks of it, and the lyrics show up on the first page of Google results for "Sydney". Nerd folk singers perform the song at AI conferences.
Those lyrics are going to leak into the training data for the next generation of chatbot AI, right? I mean, how could they not? The whole point of LLMs is that they need to be trained on lots of language. That comes from the Internet.
In a couple of years, AI tools really are extra vulnerable to prompt injection attacks that rhyme. See, I told you the song was funny!
larryhammerSome historical links:
A 9-minute summary of the history of Japan. (via)
History OverSimplified summarizes the First part 1 | part 2 and Second part 1 | part 2 | part 3 Punic Wars. Bonus: the Emu War. (via Eaglet)
Two recently authenticated organ works have been added to the catalog of J.S. Bach’s works: BWV 1178 and BWV 1179. (viaconuly)
---L.
Subject quote from Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones.
A 9-minute summary of the history of Japan. (via)
History OverSimplified summarizes the First part 1 | part 2 and Second part 1 | part 2 | part 3 Punic Wars. Bonus: the Emu War. (via Eaglet)
Two recently authenticated organ works have been added to the catalog of J.S. Bach’s works: BWV 1178 and BWV 1179. (via
conuly)---L.
Subject quote from Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones.
objectively silly use case but cute
Nov. 19th, 2025 09:45 pmyhlee
Not sentient enough to suss out ESP-IDF on three hours of sleep, but M5stack Cardputer v.1.1 (ESP32-S3) running VoidNoi's BadCard (via m5burner) to the rescue!
More updates
Nov. 19th, 2025 02:45 pmoyceterHallo all! I keep meaning to post updates, but then I get distracted. Anyway, thankfully CB flew back home mid-October, and we have been having "fun" with the US medical system since then. He luckily has very few side effects from the stroke, mostly limited to very mild paralysis on one side of his face (people have not noticed unless it's been pointed out) and some weirdness with taste. The annoying thing has been trying to get medical appointments and figure out what to do, as some doctors have been more helpful than others. Also, dealing with insurance sucks.
General Podfic Reviews
Nov. 19th, 2037 05:28 pm2naonh3_cl2I'm sure posting all of my podfics one by one on here will be a headache, so here's a general podfic comment page. Thanks.
Wednesday there was SNOW
Nov. 19th, 2025 03:52 pmoursinWhat I read
Finished The Golden Notebook - had a few comments about Lessing and blokes and plus ca change and allotropes of excuses in yesterday's post.
Decompressed with a Dick Francis, Slay-Ride (1973), which is the one set in Norway - period at which The War, resistance, Quislings etc still hangs heavy over them - not a top specimen of his, I spotted Dodgy Person very early on (but maybe protag does not read thrillers....).
Then got a jump on the next volume in the Dance to the Music of Time reading group, Temporary Kings (#11), which is the one set at some kind of cultural conference in Venice.
Also the latest Literary Review.
On the go
Continuing to dip in to Some Men in London 1960-1967.
Was agreeably surprised by the arrival of my preordered Cat Sebastian (had forgotten it was due), After Hours at Dooryard Books, which is being v good so far.
Up next
Latest Slightly Foxed.
the return of emotional support weaving
Nov. 19th, 2025 07:52 amyhleeI won't claim this is good weaving (it is not). The handspun is janky, the selvedges and tension are janky, but baby's first WIP on a floor loom was bound to be janky. Other than the unhinged levels of fog this morning, this is very enjoyable. I'm not weaving for production or efficiency at this point, just the joy of working with my hands and learning something new to me.
Choosing Health Insurance: Preventive Care [US, healthcare, Patreon]
Nov. 19th, 2025 05:52 amsidereaCanonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1886696.html
Hey, Americans and other people stuck in the American healthcare system. It's open enrollment on the state exchanges, and possibly through your employer, so I wanted to give you a little heads up about preventive care and shopping for a health insurance plan.
I've noticed from time to time various health insurance companies advertising themselves to consumers by boasting that their health plans focus on covering preventive care. Maybe they lay a spiel on you about how they believe in keeping you healthy rather than trying to fix problems after they happen. Maybe they point out in big letters "PREVENTIVE CARE 100% FREE" or "NO CO-PAYS FOR PREVENTIVE CARE".
When you come across a health insurance product advertised this way, promoted for its coverage of preventive health, I propose you should think of that as a bad thing.
Why? Do I think preventive medicine is a bad thing? Yes, actually, but that's a topic for another post. For purposes of this post, no, preventive medicine is great.
It's just that it's illegal for them not to cover preventive care 100% with no copays or other cost-sharing.
Yeah, thanks to the Obamacare law, the ACA, it's literally illegal for a health plan to be sold on the exchanges if it doesn't cover preventive care 100% with no cost-sharing, and while there are rare exceptions, it's also basically illegal for an employer to offer a health plan that doesn't cover preventive care.
They can't not, and neither can any of their competitors.
( So any health plan that's bragging on covering preventive care?.... Read more [2,270 words] )
This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
Hey, Americans and other people stuck in the American healthcare system. It's open enrollment on the state exchanges, and possibly through your employer, so I wanted to give you a little heads up about preventive care and shopping for a health insurance plan.
I've noticed from time to time various health insurance companies advertising themselves to consumers by boasting that their health plans focus on covering preventive care. Maybe they lay a spiel on you about how they believe in keeping you healthy rather than trying to fix problems after they happen. Maybe they point out in big letters "PREVENTIVE CARE 100% FREE" or "NO CO-PAYS FOR PREVENTIVE CARE".
When you come across a health insurance product advertised this way, promoted for its coverage of preventive health, I propose you should think of that as a bad thing.
Why? Do I think preventive medicine is a bad thing? Yes, actually, but that's a topic for another post. For purposes of this post, no, preventive medicine is great.
It's just that it's illegal for them not to cover preventive care 100% with no copays or other cost-sharing.
Yeah, thanks to the Obamacare law, the ACA, it's literally illegal for a health plan to be sold on the exchanges if it doesn't cover preventive care 100% with no cost-sharing, and while there are rare exceptions, it's also basically illegal for an employer to offer a health plan that doesn't cover preventive care.
They can't not, and neither can any of their competitors.
( So any health plan that's bragging on covering preventive care?.... Read more [2,270 words] )
This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
wherein Liz makes great strides toward reclaiming her own space
Nov. 18th, 2025 09:40 pmedenfallingI officially took possession of my new apartment on Saturday! I am not actually moved yet -- I am still living in my parents' guest bedroom in their basement -- but all the big furniture is there and I spent several hours unpacking and putting things away on Sunday afternoon and again this evening.
Getting my three U-boxes delivered was more of a production than it should have been, which was entirely due to technical glitches on U-haul's part. In summary, I wanted to create a reservation to have U-haul drop off all three boxes on the street, hire some movers for two hours to unload them, and then have U-haul pick the boxes back up on Sunday. I even got permission from the local police to have the boxes on the street overnight despite parking ordinances that require everyone to clear out between 2am and 6am. But U-haul's website would only allow me to create a reservation for box A. Even if I clicked on box B or box C to start the reservation, the only box that appeared as an option was box A.
Eventually I made a reservation for box A so I'd have an order number to reference, and then texted U-haul's help line. (Yes, they have a text-based help line. This is both very nice -- no phone calls! no hold music! -- and moderately frustrating, because it can be harder to explain exactly what you need via a phone keypad.)
Instead of adding box B and box C to my existing reservation, the help line guy created an entirely new reservation for all three boxes, but set it to self-delivery instead of company delivery. Which meant I now had to cancel the initial unloading-only contract with the movers (I got a credit) and create a new one for delivery AND unloading.
Also a couple days later I discovered (via a U-haul email telling me the delivery had been rescheduled from 9am to 10am) that the help line guy hadn't bothered to cancel the original reservation. I duly tried to cancel it. U-haul's website wouldn't let me. I texted the help line again, got a different person, and told them to please CANCEL order #1 and KEEP order #2. The new help line tech did that.
Which you would think would finally clear everything up, but when my moving crew showed up at the U-haul storage center on Saturday, the U-haul crew initially thought they were there for order #1 and only had box A ready. *headdesk* The moving crew lead called me to verify which order was correct, I told him order #2, he said "I knew it! I told them!" and then went and made U-haul fix their end.
I think in the end the expense wound up about the same, and this way all three boxes were cleared out and returned on the same day instead of staying overnight, but it was a pain in the neck.
...
I already knew I needed to buy a new sofa (this one, I think, will be some kind of sofa-bed) and also a new desk, but I think I also want to get some kind of open shelving unit to extend my kitchen. The current cupboards and drawers have a bit less useful space than my old kitchen, besides which I want to move a bunch of the cookware to easily reachable height instead of having things way up high or down where I need to crouch to reach them.
I also want to repaint a couple pieces of furniture I've been hauling around since childhood (they are both sturdy and useful, but primary colors are not really my style) and either paint or varnish/stain a wooden "shelving unit" that I knocked together out of two cheap-ass shoe stands (I flipped one upside down and bolted them together) about 15 years ago. In my old apartment it languished in my entry room gathering dust and holding assorted random junk, but I have decided it will suit well as a nightstand and therefore it needs to be made presentable. :)
Also also I need to install curtains to supplement the blinds, buy a shower caddy, and add some towel racks or towel loops to the bathroom, but those are easier projects. You can buy curtain rods, shower caddies, and towel fixtures practically anywhere.
Getting my three U-boxes delivered was more of a production than it should have been, which was entirely due to technical glitches on U-haul's part. In summary, I wanted to create a reservation to have U-haul drop off all three boxes on the street, hire some movers for two hours to unload them, and then have U-haul pick the boxes back up on Sunday. I even got permission from the local police to have the boxes on the street overnight despite parking ordinances that require everyone to clear out between 2am and 6am. But U-haul's website would only allow me to create a reservation for box A. Even if I clicked on box B or box C to start the reservation, the only box that appeared as an option was box A.
Eventually I made a reservation for box A so I'd have an order number to reference, and then texted U-haul's help line. (Yes, they have a text-based help line. This is both very nice -- no phone calls! no hold music! -- and moderately frustrating, because it can be harder to explain exactly what you need via a phone keypad.)
Instead of adding box B and box C to my existing reservation, the help line guy created an entirely new reservation for all three boxes, but set it to self-delivery instead of company delivery. Which meant I now had to cancel the initial unloading-only contract with the movers (I got a credit) and create a new one for delivery AND unloading.
Also a couple days later I discovered (via a U-haul email telling me the delivery had been rescheduled from 9am to 10am) that the help line guy hadn't bothered to cancel the original reservation. I duly tried to cancel it. U-haul's website wouldn't let me. I texted the help line again, got a different person, and told them to please CANCEL order #1 and KEEP order #2. The new help line tech did that.
Which you would think would finally clear everything up, but when my moving crew showed up at the U-haul storage center on Saturday, the U-haul crew initially thought they were there for order #1 and only had box A ready. *headdesk* The moving crew lead called me to verify which order was correct, I told him order #2, he said "I knew it! I told them!" and then went and made U-haul fix their end.
I think in the end the expense wound up about the same, and this way all three boxes were cleared out and returned on the same day instead of staying overnight, but it was a pain in the neck.
...
I already knew I needed to buy a new sofa (this one, I think, will be some kind of sofa-bed) and also a new desk, but I think I also want to get some kind of open shelving unit to extend my kitchen. The current cupboards and drawers have a bit less useful space than my old kitchen, besides which I want to move a bunch of the cookware to easily reachable height instead of having things way up high or down where I need to crouch to reach them.
I also want to repaint a couple pieces of furniture I've been hauling around since childhood (they are both sturdy and useful, but primary colors are not really my style) and either paint or varnish/stain a wooden "shelving unit" that I knocked together out of two cheap-ass shoe stands (I flipped one upside down and bolted them together) about 15 years ago. In my old apartment it languished in my entry room gathering dust and holding assorted random junk, but I have decided it will suit well as a nightstand and therefore it needs to be made presentable. :)
Also also I need to install curtains to supplement the blinds, buy a shower caddy, and add some towel racks or towel loops to the bathroom, but those are easier projects. You can buy curtain rods, shower caddies, and towel fixtures practically anywhere.
And lo, the song of the Mybug was once more heard in the land....
Nov. 18th, 2025 03:57 pmoursinNot OK? Booker winner Flesh ignites debate about state of masculinity
No, really, you don't say? Can it be that - once again, or perhaps, still MASCULINITY IS IN CRISIS?
Does it not sound as though the author goes in for 'dumb, dark, dull, bitter belly-tension'? (Sigh.)
I am sorry to discover that an excoriating retrospect on John Fowles with particular reference to The Magus by DJ Taylor in the latest Literary Review does not appear to be fully accessible online, chiz, chiz -
[E]ach of his novels when stripped of its fashionable appurtenances - The Magus, for example, is rife with Jungian animas - is ultimately about male entitlement.... the books are all about men expecting to get the things they want and being mortified by their absence.
....
[A] series of exercises in what Maurice Bowra called 'the higher bogus'.
I recently had the apercu, following my re-reading of The Golden Notebook, that besides being about the themes that Lessing found readers took from it - The Woman Question, the crisis of the Left at the period, mental health - surely it was also about Crisis of Masculinity/Men R Terribly Poor Stuff (I think Dame Rebecca remarked on that in her critical essay on younger woman writers). Which they were expressing/excusing largely in Freudianism terms (so many of them in analysis or had been). Wonder if current deployment of The Neurodiversity Plea is the current allotrope of He Couldn't Help It Because Reasons Beyond His Control (I suppose at least these do not blame Mummy, unless you are into to the What She Did That She Shouldn't When Pregnant narrative....).
I note that there was a BBC programme last night on the 'manosphere': young men who have drifted towards misogynist influencers – and finds them lonely, heartbreaking and on ‘semen retention journeys’ to control their sex drives. They sound rather sad and confused. (And historian is appalled at the persistence of a panic drummed up by an early C18th quack....)
Am trying to think of period when one could reliably say that masculinity was not in (some kind of) crisis.
US Politics: John Oliver made me happy cry
Nov. 17th, 2025 10:24 pmpetraHis latest episode's main piece was on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a cause dear to my heart.
It made me furious even as it made me laugh, because it's John Oliver. And the last bits made me weep like my PBS junkie inner child was in charge, because, in the best Oliverian tradition, he made me hope.
I love his work so much.
It made me furious even as it made me laugh, because it's John Oliver. And the last bits made me weep like my PBS junkie inner child was in charge, because, in the best Oliverian tradition, he made me hope.
I love his work so much.
All fun and games until
Nov. 17th, 2025 07:29 pmoursinAre they going to eat me alive?’: trail runners become prey in newest form of hunting:
Would you like to be chased by a pack of hounds? It’s a question often put to highlight the cruelty of hunting, because the answer would seem to be no. Or so you would think.
Yet increasing numbers of people are volunteering to be chased across the countryside by baying bloodhounds in what could soon be the only legal way to hunt with dogs in England and Wales, rather than pursuing animals or their scents.
I seem to recall that the pursuit of children with bloodhounds featured in the Mitford children's childhood (or was this just one of Nancy's fictional artefacts?) but as I recall that did not involve pursuing them across country on horseback.... (and presumably the children were already acquainted with their father's bloodhounds).
Maybe this would have struck differently - jolly countryside japes? - if this had not been the same week in which there was
a) a review of the new remake of The Running Man:
Ben signs up for a top-rated reality TV show called The Running Man; he has to go on the run across the US, hunted by professional killers, and if he can survive for 30 days, he gets a billion dollars. But all too late, he realises that these shark-like fascist TV execs aren’t going to play fair.
(pretty sure I have come across similar scenarios set in nearish future dystopias) and
b) this creep-making report: Italy investigates claims of tourists paying to shoot civilians in Bosnia in 1990s:
[J]ournalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni, who describes a "manhunt" by "very wealthy people" with a passion for weapons who "paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians" from Serb positions in the hills around Sarajevo.
Different rates were charged to kill men, women or children, according to some reports.
I'm really not sure it's a great idea to start this sort of thing.
Really bad news
Nov. 17th, 2025 06:01 pmlexinI had Smokey PTS today. I am heartbroken. All the way home from the vets I wanted to scream “give me my cat back”.
Smokey came to live with me when I was living in London and shortly after my mum died. I had wanted a cat for some time, but given that I visited mum every three weeks it didn’t seem fair to have someone have to come in and feed it while I trotted off.
She came from the RSPCA cat shelter in (I think) Finsbury Park, with all the palaver that entails around being inspected and providing reliable references.
I chose her rather than her sister because Smokey was lively and the sister wasn’t. And because I knew that as a black cat she might struggle more to find a home.
Why now? Smokey had been struggling more and more each day. She had a hard little cough that I didn’t like the sound of. She was struggling to jump onto my bed. Her coat was “staring”, meaning it stood up rather than lying down and being glossy, and, as I became aware on Saturday night, her purr had changed. In fact she didn’t seem to be able to purr properly. Worst of all, she just sat in a corner all day and looked mournful. In short, it was time.
I wish I could believe in things like the “rainbow bridge” but I can’t.
She was the best cat, and I will miss her always.
Smokey came to live with me when I was living in London and shortly after my mum died. I had wanted a cat for some time, but given that I visited mum every three weeks it didn’t seem fair to have someone have to come in and feed it while I trotted off.
She came from the RSPCA cat shelter in (I think) Finsbury Park, with all the palaver that entails around being inspected and providing reliable references.
I chose her rather than her sister because Smokey was lively and the sister wasn’t. And because I knew that as a black cat she might struggle more to find a home.
Why now? Smokey had been struggling more and more each day. She had a hard little cough that I didn’t like the sound of. She was struggling to jump onto my bed. Her coat was “staring”, meaning it stood up rather than lying down and being glossy, and, as I became aware on Saturday night, her purr had changed. In fact she didn’t seem to be able to purr properly. Worst of all, she just sat in a corner all day and looked mournful. In short, it was time.
I wish I could believe in things like the “rainbow bridge” but I can’t.
She was the best cat, and I will miss her always.