matt_doyle | Reading

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/01/online-platform-independent-bookshops-ebooks-uk

Bookshop.org is now selling ebooks in the UK as well, with profits (as with paper books sold through them) going to indie bookshops; you can either pick a specific shop you love to benefit (in my case, Juno Books), or have the money go into a collective pool.

yhlee

Not my catten but

isis's catten's contribution! So very soft. :3

Not much yet as it's a slightly tricky spin, mostly in that one has to pay attention instead of watching anime while spinning on inattentive mode. :D It feels different of course (silkier/floofier), but the spinning technique, like huacaya alpaca, is surprisingly similar to cotton in some ways!

BTW,

isis, Cloud has been sniffing my hands VERY SUSPICIOUSLY ahahahaha.

mrissa

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This is the second half of what is being called a duology, with The Witch Roads as the first half of the story. I would say it's less a duology than a novel in two volumes. The first volume ends on a cliffhanger, and the second picks up basically immediately with no reintroduction to the characters, setting, and plot. So: one story in two volumes, now complete.

There were things I really liked about this and things that left me cold. I feel like the pacing was weird--the chapters are short, but that didn't really obscure how many pages were spent on basically one argument. I also found the ending deeply unsatisfying--the situation of having a character possessing other people was basically glanced at as problematic and then embraced as a happy ending that was entirely too convenient for all involved.

But the return to our protagonist Elen's past home, illuminating it with her adult eyes, was really well done, and I liked the courage and strength shown by the child she encountered there. I love having a fantasy that has an aunt/nephew relationship as one of its emotional cores. This duology simultaneously locates itself centrally in the secondary world fantasy genre of the moment and branches out to do things that I'm not seeing a lot of in other fantasy of this type.

ailelie

So. My ceiling leaked. I panicked and called for immediate water mitigation. After a quick search (at about 2 or 3 in the morning), I sent a message to CWF.

They came out. I hired the guy.

They did a fantastic job. Everyone who saw or heard about what they did told me it was complete overkill, but I liked being *sure* that my ceiling wasn't moldy or weakening. I've had a ceiling fall, just inches from crashing over my body. I did not want to risk that.

What I did not know: mitigation would require cutting 4 large holes in my ceiling. They would not fix those.

Oh, they had a division that fixed the holes, but that was a separate service and fee.

Fixing my ceiling (they bundled in re-painting my ceiling in my living room, hall, and kitchen) would cost over $4,000. I said 'no.' I'd live with the holes first.

Today, I got the bill for the water mitigation. $2,700. Paying with a credit card is going to cost an additional $82.

I feel so incredibly foolish.

yhlee

Happily, there's more of this so I can spin up more for a 2-ply. Destined for weft for the Saori loom - I have promised Joe a smol, semifunctional blanket. :3

elisem

At our house, Opportunity Food is defined as what you can make when you can't stand up that long today.

Currently, is Bowl o' Cronch:

take bowl
spread some nut butter on bottom/sides of bowl (note: INsides, not OUTsides) - today is peanut butter
throw some dried fruit at nut butter if you got some - today is raisins and some crystallized ginger
put in puffed brown rice (or whatever you got)
add milk, or if no milk, a couple really big spoonfuls plain yogurt
anything else you got that seems appetizing
get big spoon
eat

elisem

We are still getting through COVID.
We are still resting LIKE POTATOES.
(Still funny. Every time.)

A helpful person pointed out it is still open enrollment time for health insurance.
Well then.

Have inquired with health insurance broker.
(It doesn't cost anything. If you are in Minnesota or Wisconsin, and need one, I have references.)
There are things that can be done, it looks like.

For right now, though, my tasks:

Wash a few dishes - DONE
Have brekkie - IN PROGRESS
Take meds - IN PROGRESS
Sit Up because it helps breathing - IN PROGRESS

OK. Onward.

P.S. Love all of y'all. You are still the best.

yhlee

Loom assembly to continue...after...catten removes herself from possibly having screws DROPPED on her... /o\

Special thanks to Jill of Saori Santa Cruz,

merrileemakes, and my husband for helping me figure out which part of assembly I borked yesterday!

ailelie

I need to remember to review this post when picking out some books for a nieph: https://stackedbooks.org/ya-horror-comics/

cofax7

Just finished: Emily of New Moon, on audiobook from Librivox. Dean Priest is sketchy as shit from Day One. Teddy is white-bread. Ilse and Perry at least have personalities. And Jimmy is darling.

Currently reading: Number 5 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl (slowly), and I'm partway through the audiobook of Jamaica Inn by Daphne duMaurier, which is hella gothic and really well-written. I'm mildly entertained by DCC but I cannot keep all the fancy spells in my brain and the body count is pretty excessive (especially once you know that all the NPCs are real people!)

Up Next: The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott, sequel to The Witch Roads. Happily it's available on Bookshop.org DRM-free, so I could download it and sideload it onto my Kindle.

*+*+*

In other news, work is insane and and and. But at least Prop 50 passed, and at least some of the Dems are figuring out that we need them to FIGHT BACK. But this shutdown sucks. I can't be more specific than that.

Bah.

lassarina

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rachelmanija

This book is very hard to describe without spoilers, so I'll just cover the setup. Aspiring actress/current waitress Jess is having a bad night that gets much worse when she finds a scared little boy who's run away from his father. Things get extremely strange from there. This book is a wild ride.

I read it in a single sitting, so it's very propulsive. It's also very dark/bleak, despite some absurdist humor arising from the premise. I enjoyed it a lot while I read it, but it's now months later and it hasn't quite stuck with me the way some other books have. Nestlings is still my favorite of his.

Content notes: Child abuse/harm is central to the story. So is an accidental needle-stick with a possibly contaminated needle.

Spoilers! Also contains some light spoilers for Stephen King's Firestarter.

( Read more... )

watersword

I bravely confronted the treadmill at the gym and am pleased to report that I was overly cautious about both the speed and incline settings (I am 100% terrified of faceplanting when I use a treadmill), so next time I will push both a little bit, as well as sticking to the slightly higher resistance on the erg. Half-marathon walking, here I come! (I do not give a single fuck about running a marathon, half or otherwise, but I have a planned trip that will mean a lot of walking on a lot of hills on successive days, and I would like not to die while doing so.)

Having some fuckin' feelings about this week's Life is a Sacred Text and my birthday and the choices I've made in my life and the consequences of those choices. And having some bonus feelings about velveteenrabbi_feed's True North and Sarah Kendzior's essay from November 2016 and my (access-locked) response back then. Of course, I am also having a lot of much less complicated feelings about the various elections results (Schadenfreude and sincere pleasure in an outcome? Put that chocolate in my orange marmalade!), and that is a great way to start the day.

There is a new Dessa EP and of course I love both tracks and am hoping for the annual Doomtree site sale in December so I can throw money at every CD they have in stock. The Brother Cadfael mysteries are excellent bath reading in between Aubreyad novels, although the identical teenage heterosexual romances begin to grate after a few; I finished Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses series, which was largely enjoyable, and am going to embark on Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai, having discovered it has no relationship to the 2003 movie, directed by Edward Zwick. (I cannot recommend Dewitt's The English Understand Wool highly enough. It is exquisite.)

elisem

Have had food. (Soup!) Have had meds. Vented on Bluesky, where I am

lionesselise. Am about to rest again for a while. LIKE A POTATO. If a potato could crochet, anyhow. I'm in a mood for a little crocheting before sleepage.

Love you all.
You are the best.

elisem

Because I recently turned 65, there were changes in my insurance.
I now have Blue Cross Blue Shield, which I used to have some years ago before I got switched to a different insurance.
They have now denied a med that is a cornerstone of why I am feeling better and breathing better these days.

The switch happened after my August birthday.
All the other meds are (allegedly, and I do believe them) on the way from the mail order pharmacy (who were good when I used to use them).
This med has been denied by insurance, which is BCBS. Even after special authorization, which they told me I needed, they denied it.

Am almost out.

(Yes, this is the med that the other insurance company kept only filling for one month, despite my doc writing a three-month scrip every frikkin time. Yes, this is one of the things I worry about running out of, because it matters a lot.)

Also you may imagine bitter laughter as various med and scheduling people explain to me that the insurance is apparently requiring the patient, me, go in to meet with the doc. The agoraphobic patient, these days. Though we did get to "virtual visit is acceptable," which is good, before we got to "the first virtual visit possible is a while after patient runs out of meds" which is not.

This stuff is what I was already making calls on and trying to handle before I got COVID. The two together is just a really horrible coincidence.

(Even if we did try to switch me to the insurance that was fine with it before (like Blue Cross Blue Shield was actually fine with it a few years ago when I had it!), there's no guarantee we won't run afoul of some new rule.)

There are options being looked into, for which details will be scant and the passive voice, for the moment, will be employed.

I do not have words that will cover exactly how I feel about this insurance bullshit. However the person just now taking the note to give my doc did write down faithfully that "patient is worried that without this med, she may not be around to keep this appointment," which is at least something I guess.

I am hungry. (I am the king now and I want a sandwich?) Actually what I want right now is soup. I wonder if I can stand up long enough to microwave some. Gotta put some food in or the meds might bounce, and it's meds time.

Grrrrr.

elisem

Still have COVID.
Still continuing.
Still resting like potatoes.
(With the caveat that I do get up and sit in a chair for a while each day, because my body needs that for some things.)

Today's things included talking on phone with multiple people at new insurance/pharmacy/et cetera.
Cried twice.
This is harder than it actually needs to be.
Told them, when they asked if med was medically necessary, that I like breathing and wished not to give it up.
(I DUNNO, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU GUYS THINK, IS A MED THAT HELPS WITH MY ALLERGIES AND MY ASTHMA POSSIBLY IMPORTANT WHEN I AM IN ACUTE COVID RIGHT NOW? WHY COULD THAT POSSIBLY MATTER, RIGHT GUYS?)

Paxlovid mouth-taste is evil.
Only have to get through tonight and tomorrow and however long the aftertaste lasts.
Am combating it with gummy candies.
Decided why the heck not.
About to open bag of jelly turtles that tells me they are from Spain.
O jelly turtles from Spain, I put my hope in your benevolent tastiness.

Thank you all for being here.
Good words help a lot. Maybe tell me something good from your life today?
I like hearing about good moments.

I do have plans.
They are not vengeance unless vengeance is making really good art.
I just have to get well enough to realize them.
Meanwhile, jelly turtles from Spain, and also some weird blueberry planets that are freaking huge.
And you all. I like you people. Hello, people!
I may be slightly giddy again.

yhlee

I slightly less half-assedly fixed the warp on the Clover Sakiori loom (Japanese).

weaving WIP close-up

I didn't bring a comb for the weft and was using a tapestry needle, but catten remains unlikely to mind imperfect weaving.

Also, further adventures in dyeing wool yarn. I'd like to test on dyeing combed top for cotton, ramie, and silk (mulberry/bombyx, eri, tussah, and maybe a small sample of my treasured stash of muga); and then try some on alpaca or mohair after I've processed some more.

dyed yarn

Later in the season, in natural dyes, I might experiment with the traditional hoary old standby of onion skins; rose hips (several of my roses shrubs produce them); and find out if windfall figs from the no-longer-quite-so-baby fig tree do anything interested as dyes. Osage orange, common madder, true and false indigo, hibiscus, and elderberry grow in Louisiana so making a dye plant plot might be entertaining. That or I sacrifice e.g. a bunch of beets lol. For personal use, I don't care about consistency (I prefer chaos ball colors) and I'm not that fussed about reliable fastness. "Throw it in a pot and also an ~appropriate mordant" for personal experiment promises to be very entertaining.