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2025 52 Card Project: Week 39: Making
Oct. 3rd, 2025 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI had two Year of Adventure meetings this week, both dedicated to teaching me how to make something new.
I met with my sister Betsy, who showed me how to make an apple pie from scratch, including the pastry. The secret, I was duly informed, is the use of lard (which makes the pastry light and flaky) and tapioca to thicken the apple filling. Okay, I will admit that the pastry cover was placed a little crookedly, but I can assure you that it was delicious.
I also got together withcarbonel, who invited me to her home to give me my first lesson on spinning wool into yarn. I had some experience with a drop spindle many years ago, but spinning on a spinning wheel takes a degree of coordination that I obviously did not master in the time we were working together. First, the treadle must be worked in the correct direction at a steady rate--I kept hesitating on the pedal, and the wheel would aggravatingly start turning in the wrong direction. And the hand coordination was another thing: I kept holding the rover (the combed wool) in the left hand too tightly ("hold it lightly, as if were a baby bird" carbonel kept chanting in my ear with only a hint of exasperation), and my clumsiness with the drafting (feeding the wool with the right hand) meant that the yarn kept overtwisting.
But at least I have my first effort of spun wool sitting on my dining room table, and I keep glancing at it with an interesting mix of pride and embarrassment. It is very, very bad, but at least I can now say that I have tried spinning.
This collage is not one of my favorites, being both too busy and too monochromatic, but hey, that's what I have.
Image description: Center: a smiling woman (Peg) stands at a counter with a rolling pin and an unbaked apple pie. Top left: hands cut a pastry cutter through pastry dough in a bowl. Top right: hands work pastry dough in a bowl. Below that: various apple pie ingredients. Lower left: a hand holds unspun wool. Lower right: a spinning wheel. Lower center: a butterfly of (badly) spun undyed wool.
Making
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
I met with my sister Betsy, who showed me how to make an apple pie from scratch, including the pastry. The secret, I was duly informed, is the use of lard (which makes the pastry light and flaky) and tapioca to thicken the apple filling. Okay, I will admit that the pastry cover was placed a little crookedly, but I can assure you that it was delicious.
I also got together with
carbonel, who invited me to her home to give me my first lesson on spinning wool into yarn. I had some experience with a drop spindle many years ago, but spinning on a spinning wheel takes a degree of coordination that I obviously did not master in the time we were working together. First, the treadle must be worked in the correct direction at a steady rate--I kept hesitating on the pedal, and the wheel would aggravatingly start turning in the wrong direction. And the hand coordination was another thing: I kept holding the rover (the combed wool) in the left hand too tightly ("hold it lightly, as if were a baby bird" carbonel kept chanting in my ear with only a hint of exasperation), and my clumsiness with the drafting (feeding the wool with the right hand) meant that the yarn kept overtwisting. But at least I have my first effort of spun wool sitting on my dining room table, and I keep glancing at it with an interesting mix of pride and embarrassment. It is very, very bad, but at least I can now say that I have tried spinning.
This collage is not one of my favorites, being both too busy and too monochromatic, but hey, that's what I have.
Image description: Center: a smiling woman (Peg) stands at a counter with a rolling pin and an unbaked apple pie. Top left: hands cut a pastry cutter through pastry dough in a bowl. Top right: hands work pastry dough in a bowl. Below that: various apple pie ingredients. Lower left: a hand holds unspun wool. Lower right: a spinning wheel. Lower center: a butterfly of (badly) spun undyed wool.
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
Out of Air, by Rachel Reiss
Oct. 1st, 2025 11:14 pmrachelmanija
Just in terms of the premise, this is The Secret History meets Shadow Divers: a poor girl scuba diver falls in with a group of rich kid scuba divers, and they end up bound together by a shared deadly secret. There's other works it also reminded of, again just in terms of the premise, which are more spoilery: ( Read more... )
In the present timeline, Phoebe aka "Phibs," a poor aspiring underwater photographer, discovers a hidden underwater cave while on a diving trip with her four rich best friends, Gabriel (hot boy she likes), Will (Gabriel's fraternal twin, a joker), Lani (lost three fingers in past timeline, now afraid to dive), and Isabel (Lani's girlfriend). That is all the characterization Phibs's friends get, though Phibs herself gets a little bit more, or at least more backstory: she's the sole caretaker of her grandmother with dementia, and the women in her family have a possibly uncanny knack for finding things.
In the past timeline, Phibs finds five gold coins via the family knack, and something happens that led to Lani losing fingers and someone dying. In the present, Phibs finds a beautiful underwater cave with an air pocket. She and Gabriel rest and kiss in the air pocket... and then learn that there's a legend saying bad things happen to people who breathe the air in the cave. It seems to be true, as deeply creepy things begin happening to their bodies...
The plot and premise are great, and the diving and body horror/transformation scenes are really well-done. Reiss is a professional scuba diver, and you can tell. But the pacing feels a bit abrupt and choppy, which is not helped by the dual timelines cutting between the past and present, so that events that actually are set up still sometimes feel like they come out of the blue. I had a hard time figuring out the geography of anywhere that wasn't underwater, which is not a common complaint I have about books - for instance, I wasn't sure for most of the book whether the island base in the present storyline was a tiny island with only one house on it, or a large one with a town. And of course there's the mostly-nonexistent characterization, which is really the biggest problem with the book. If this had actual characters rather than "hot boy" and "Lani's girlfriend," it would have been so good.
I didn't mind that nothing is explained about what's actually up with the cave and Phibs's family knack, but in case you would mind: nothing is explained. I did enjoy reading the book but more attention to character and taking things slower could have made it excellent rather than just an enjoyable read with some standout elements.
The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Pt 1 [cur ev, war, Patreon]
Oct. 1st, 2025 02:55 amsidereaCanonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1884180.html
0.
Let us appreciate that the only reason – the only reason – I know about what I am about to share with you is because of that whole music history thing of mine. It's not even my history. My main beat is 16th century dance music (± half a century). But dance music is working music, and as such I consider all the forms of work music to be its counsin, and so I have, of an occasion, wandered into the New England Folk Festival's sea-shanty sing. Many people go through life understanding the world around them through the perspective of a philosophical stance, a religious conviction, a grand explanatory theory, fitting the things they encounter into these frameworks; I do not know if I should be embarrased or not, but for me, so often it's just song cues.
So when I saw the word "Essequibo" go by in the web-equivalent of page six of the international news, I was all like, "Oh! I know that word!" recognizing a song cue when I see one. "It's a river. I wonder where it is?"
And I clicked the link.
That was twenty-one months ago.
Ever since, I have been on a different and ever-increasingly diverging timeline from the one just about everyone else is on.
In December of 2023, Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, tried to kick off World War Three.
He hasn't stopped trying. He's had to take breaks to steal elections and deal with some climate catastrophe and things like that. But mostly ever since – arguably since September of 2023 – Maduro has been escalating.
You wouldn't know it from recent media coverage of what the US is doing off the coast of Venezuela. At no point has any news coverage of the US military deployment to that part of the world mentioned anything about the explosive geopolitical context there. A geopolitical context, that when it has been reported on is referred to in terms like "a pressure cooker" and "spiraling".
The US government itself has said nothing that alludes to it in any way. The US government has its story and it's sticking to it: this is about drugs.
As you may be aware, the US government is claiming to have sunk three Venezuelan boats using the US military. The first of these sinkings was on September 1st.
To hear the media tell it, the US just up and decided to start summarily executing people on boats in the Caribbean that it feels were drug-runners on Sep 1st.
No mention is made of what happened on Aug 31st.
On August 31, the day before the first US military attack on a Venezuelan vessel, at around 14:00 local time, somebody opened fire on election officials delivering ballot and ballot boxes in the country Venezuela is threatening to invade.
And they did it from the Venezuelan side of the river that is the border between the two countries.
That country is an American ally. And extremely close American ally. An ally that is of enormous importance to the US.
And which is a thirtieth the size of Venezuela by population, and which has an army less than one twentieth as large.
You would be forgiven for not knowing that Venezuela has been threatening to and apparently also materially preparing to invade another country, because while it's a fact that gets reported in the news, it is never reported in the same news as American actions involving or mentioning Venezuela.
Venezuela, which is a close ally of Russia.
You may have heard about how twenty-one months ago, in December of 2023, there was an election in Venezuela which Maduro claimed was a landslide win for him. There was a lot of coverage in English-speaking news about that election and how it was an obvious fraud, and the candidate who won the opposition party's primary wasn't on the ballot, and so on and so forth.
You probably didn't hear that in that very same election, there was a referendum. If you did hear it reported, you might have encountered it being dismissed in the media as a kind of political stunt of Maduro's, to get people to show up to the polls or to energize his base. It couldn't possibly be (the reasoning went) that he meant it. Surely it was just political theater.
The referendum questions put, on Dec 3, 2023, to the voters of Venezuela were about whether or not they supported establishing a new Venezuelan state.
Inside the borders of the country of Guyana.
2023 Dec 4: The Guardian: "Venezuela referendum result: voters back bid to claim sovereignty over large swath of Guyana".
Why?
Eleven billion gallons of light, sweet crude: the highest quality of oil that commands the highest price.
(I can hear all of Gen X breathe, "Oh of course.")
It is under the floor of the Caribbean in an area known as the Stabroek Block.
The Stabroek Block is off the coast of an area known as the Essequibo.
It takes its name from the Essequibo River, which borders it on one side, and it constitutes approximately two-thirds of the land area of the country of Guyana.
Whoever owns the Essequibo owns the Stabroek Block and whoever owns the Stabroek owns those 11B gallons of easily-accessed, high-value oil.
As far as almost everyone outside of Venezuela has been concerned, for the last hundred years Guyana has owned the Essequibo.
Venezuela disagrees. ( Read more [5,760 words] )
This post brought to you by the 219 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!
0.
The Essequibo River is the queen of rivers all!
Buddy-ta-na-na, we are somebody, oh!
The Essequibo River is the queen of rivers all!
Buddy-ta-na-na, we are somebody, oh!
Somebody, oh, Johnny! Somebody, oh!
Buddy-ta-na-na, we are somebody, oh!
– Sea shanty, presumed Guyanese
Let us appreciate that the only reason – the only reason – I know about what I am about to share with you is because of that whole music history thing of mine. It's not even my history. My main beat is 16th century dance music (± half a century). But dance music is working music, and as such I consider all the forms of work music to be its counsin, and so I have, of an occasion, wandered into the New England Folk Festival's sea-shanty sing. Many people go through life understanding the world around them through the perspective of a philosophical stance, a religious conviction, a grand explanatory theory, fitting the things they encounter into these frameworks; I do not know if I should be embarrased or not, but for me, so often it's just song cues.
So when I saw the word "Essequibo" go by in the web-equivalent of page six of the international news, I was all like, "Oh! I know that word!" recognizing a song cue when I see one. "It's a river. I wonder where it is?"
And I clicked the link.
That was twenty-one months ago.
Ever since, I have been on a different and ever-increasingly diverging timeline from the one just about everyone else is on.
In December of 2023, Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, tried to kick off World War Three.
He hasn't stopped trying. He's had to take breaks to steal elections and deal with some climate catastrophe and things like that. But mostly ever since – arguably since September of 2023 – Maduro has been escalating.
You wouldn't know it from recent media coverage of what the US is doing off the coast of Venezuela. At no point has any news coverage of the US military deployment to that part of the world mentioned anything about the explosive geopolitical context there. A geopolitical context, that when it has been reported on is referred to in terms like "a pressure cooker" and "spiraling".
The US government itself has said nothing that alludes to it in any way. The US government has its story and it's sticking to it: this is about drugs.
As you may be aware, the US government is claiming to have sunk three Venezuelan boats using the US military. The first of these sinkings was on September 1st.
To hear the media tell it, the US just up and decided to start summarily executing people on boats in the Caribbean that it feels were drug-runners on Sep 1st.
No mention is made of what happened on Aug 31st.
On August 31, the day before the first US military attack on a Venezuelan vessel, at around 14:00 local time, somebody opened fire on election officials delivering ballot and ballot boxes in the country Venezuela is threatening to invade.
And they did it from the Venezuelan side of the river that is the border between the two countries.
That country is an American ally. And extremely close American ally. An ally that is of enormous importance to the US.
And which is a thirtieth the size of Venezuela by population, and which has an army less than one twentieth as large.
You would be forgiven for not knowing that Venezuela has been threatening to and apparently also materially preparing to invade another country, because while it's a fact that gets reported in the news, it is never reported in the same news as American actions involving or mentioning Venezuela.
Venezuela, which is a close ally of Russia.
You may have heard about how twenty-one months ago, in December of 2023, there was an election in Venezuela which Maduro claimed was a landslide win for him. There was a lot of coverage in English-speaking news about that election and how it was an obvious fraud, and the candidate who won the opposition party's primary wasn't on the ballot, and so on and so forth.
You probably didn't hear that in that very same election, there was a referendum. If you did hear it reported, you might have encountered it being dismissed in the media as a kind of political stunt of Maduro's, to get people to show up to the polls or to energize his base. It couldn't possibly be (the reasoning went) that he meant it. Surely it was just political theater.
The referendum questions put, on Dec 3, 2023, to the voters of Venezuela were about whether or not they supported establishing a new Venezuelan state.
Inside the borders of the country of Guyana.
2023 Dec 4: The Guardian: "Venezuela referendum result: voters back bid to claim sovereignty over large swath of Guyana".
Why?
Eleven billion gallons of light, sweet crude: the highest quality of oil that commands the highest price.
(I can hear all of Gen X breathe, "Oh of course.")
It is under the floor of the Caribbean in an area known as the Stabroek Block.
The Stabroek Block is off the coast of an area known as the Essequibo.
It takes its name from the Essequibo River, which borders it on one side, and it constitutes approximately two-thirds of the land area of the country of Guyana.
Whoever owns the Essequibo owns the Stabroek Block and whoever owns the Stabroek owns those 11B gallons of easily-accessed, high-value oil.
Image from BBC, originally in "Essequibo: Venezuela moves to claim Guyana-controlled region", 2023 Dec 6
As far as almost everyone outside of Venezuela has been concerned, for the last hundred years Guyana has owned the Essequibo.
Venezuela disagrees. ( Read more [5,760 words] )
This post brought to you by the 219 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!
The Bewitching & Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Oct. 1st, 2025 06:44 amrachelmanija
Three timelines intertwine, connected by witches and women. A grad student in Massachusetts in the 1990s, whose grandmother had a run-in with a witch in the early 1900s in Mexico, researches the mysterious disappearance of a promising woman horror writer in the 1930s.
It's a very nicely constructed, gripping, enjoyable novel of good and evil magic, and women's persistence in the face of what seem to be impossible odds.
Content notes: Cat death.
What it says on the tin: a very gothic-y gothic, set in Mexico. Noemi is a bit of a shallow, selfish debutante in 1950s Mexico. But when she realizes that her cousin who married a wealthy older man may be in trouble in their lavish home in rural Mexico, Noemi sets out to rescue her. She promptly encounters every gothic trope ever, plus a really fun twist on the haunted house/ghost story.
It turns out that being a mean girl debutante used to getting her own way is exactly what's needed to survive this story. I had no end of fun with Noemi bluntly calling out the rule about no talking at dinner, demanding to know exactly what medical treatment her cousin was getting, and generally running roughshod over the creepy atmosphere. A very enjoyable book that I read in a single sitting.
Poll: Sense of geopolitical awareness [pols, US, war]
Sep. 29th, 2025 02:36 amsidereaHey, quick temperature check. I've been reading a lot of media I don't expect my readership to read, and now I'm a little disoriented to who knows what.
Poll #33668 Geopolitics awareness check
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 119
What country do you currently live in?
What is your age?
12-19
2 (1.7%)
20-29
5 (4.2%)
30-39
18 (15.3%)
40-49
31 (26.3%)
50-59
40 (33.9%)
60-69
15 (12.7%)
70-79
7 (5.9%)
80+
0 (0.0%)
To the best of your knowledge, if the US were to go to war tomorrow, against what country would it most likely be?
Two Q [writing, DW]
Sep. 26th, 2025 07:17 pmsiderea1)
Is there a term for the part of a large non-fiction writing project that comes after the research – when you have a huge pile of sources and quotes and whatnot – and before the actual "writing" part, the part that involves making sure you have all the citations correct for the sources, maybe going over the sources to highlight what passages you will quote verbatim, organizing them (historically by putting things on 3x5 cards and moving them around on a surface), and generally wrangling all the materials you are going to use into shape to be used?
I think this is often just thought of as part of "research", but when I'm doing a resource-dense project, it's not at all negligible. It takes a huge amount of time, and is exceptionally hard on my body. I'd like, if nothing else, to complain about it, and not having a word for it makes that hard.
2)
I don't suppose there's some, perhaps undocumented, way to use Dreamwidth's post-via-email feature with manually set dates? So you email in a journal entry to a specific date in the past? This doesn't appear among the options for post headers in the docs.
I am working on a large geopolitics project where I am trying to construct a two-year long timeline, and it dawns on me one of the easiest ways to do that might be to set up a personal comm on DW and literally post each timeline-entry as a comm entry. But maybe not if I have to go through the web interface, because that would be kind of miserable; I work via email.
Is there a term for the part of a large non-fiction writing project that comes after the research – when you have a huge pile of sources and quotes and whatnot – and before the actual "writing" part, the part that involves making sure you have all the citations correct for the sources, maybe going over the sources to highlight what passages you will quote verbatim, organizing them (historically by putting things on 3x5 cards and moving them around on a surface), and generally wrangling all the materials you are going to use into shape to be used?
I think this is often just thought of as part of "research", but when I'm doing a resource-dense project, it's not at all negligible. It takes a huge amount of time, and is exceptionally hard on my body. I'd like, if nothing else, to complain about it, and not having a word for it makes that hard.
2)
I don't suppose there's some, perhaps undocumented, way to use Dreamwidth's post-via-email feature with manually set dates? So you email in a journal entry to a specific date in the past? This doesn't appear among the options for post headers in the docs.
I am working on a large geopolitics project where I am trying to construct a two-year long timeline, and it dawns on me one of the easiest ways to do that might be to set up a personal comm on DW and literally post each timeline-entry as a comm entry. But maybe not if I have to go through the web interface, because that would be kind of miserable; I work via email.
2025 52 Card Project: Week 38: Lark Toys
Sep. 26th, 2025 11:19 ampegkerrThis week, as another Year of Adventure event, Pat Wrede and I (at Pat's suggestion) took a road trip to Kellogg, Minnesota to visit Lark Toys. I'd never heard of the place before, but it was an enjoyable jaunt indeed. It was started by a man who was interested in creating a market for his carved wooden toys, and over the years it has grown to be a remarkable place. Besides being a toy store, it is a toy museum. It was great fun to wander down the corridor of "Memory Lane" and identify old toys that I had as a child, that I haven't thought of for years: Spirograph, the game of Life, Chinese Checkers, Operation, spin tops, etc. There was an impressive little bookstore, too, with thoughtfully curated books for adults as well as children.
The centerpiece is a truly extraordinary carved carousel, created by the original owner. There was a cafe, and a fudge emporium, and had we been inclined, a miniature golf course.
It was a lovely drive, and Lark Toys was great fun and well worth the trip. Highly recommended I came home with a wee giftie for M, which I look forward to seeing her enjoy.
Image description: Background: a corridor of Lark Toys, lined with display cases. Top: a sign with the words "Memory Lane." Upper left: the logo for Lark Toys, the silhouette of a bird with a wind-up toy key on its back. Below the silhouette: the words "Long Ago." Below the "Memory Lane" sign, another sign which reads: "As once the wing'd energy of delight carried you over childhood's dark abyss, now beyond your own life buid the great arch of unimagined bridges. -Rainer Marie Rilke." Below this sign: a stylized tree, over a pillowed reading nook. Right: a lamp past with directional signs jutting out of the post. Left: a wooden stand filled with lollipops. Lower half: a rabbit and a swan each wearing a saddle (figures from a carousel). Bottom: a family of toy bunnies and a group of Matryoshka Russian nesting dolls.
Lark Toys
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
The centerpiece is a truly extraordinary carved carousel, created by the original owner. There was a cafe, and a fudge emporium, and had we been inclined, a miniature golf course.
It was a lovely drive, and Lark Toys was great fun and well worth the trip. Highly recommended I came home with a wee giftie for M, which I look forward to seeing her enjoy.
Image description: Background: a corridor of Lark Toys, lined with display cases. Top: a sign with the words "Memory Lane." Upper left: the logo for Lark Toys, the silhouette of a bird with a wind-up toy key on its back. Below the silhouette: the words "Long Ago." Below the "Memory Lane" sign, another sign which reads: "As once the wing'd energy of delight carried you over childhood's dark abyss, now beyond your own life buid the great arch of unimagined bridges. -Rainer Marie Rilke." Below this sign: a stylized tree, over a pillowed reading nook. Right: a lamp past with directional signs jutting out of the post. Left: a wooden stand filled with lollipops. Lower half: a rabbit and a swan each wearing a saddle (figures from a carousel). Bottom: a family of toy bunnies and a group of Matryoshka Russian nesting dolls.
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
(no subject)
Sep. 24th, 2025 10:28 amsartoriasI'm up here at my sister's, not quite a hundred miles north of home, while the new floors are put in. It's all SoCal, and yet a completely different microclimate. I woke to the tut-tut-tut of some bird we don't ever hear at home, and other chirps and twitters equally unfamiliar. Over that, though, the very familiar caw of crows.
As I did the morning walk with the little dog, and listened to the local crows up in the eucalyptus and pines, I wondered if the crows that follow me at home were watching for me to come. Now that the sun is lowering a bit, we're back to increasing numbers, so I might have thirty or so swirling around me when I throw unsalted peanuts out. so exhilarating to watch them!
Here they don't know me, of course, so the calls can't be to let me know they are there. I'm sure the lives of humans are ignorable, except as annoyances that send them into the trees. I wondered about that sky civilization as I trod the path to the dog park. So much going on at the tops of the trees, that we barely notice!
It's such a relief not to be toiling with packing, though of course unpacking lies in wait to pounce when I get back. Then I'll only have three or four days before I take off for my October east trip, so most of my share of the unloading will await me on my return. The big job (and the fun one) is the library.
Speaking of, since it's Wednesday, let's see, what have I been reading? The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell, which is part of a book discussion that I've been following since the start of the year. One book a month in Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series. The discussion happens at the start of each month over Zoom, and what interests me is how folks from either side of the Atlantic read the work. Also, non-genre reading. This time I'll be on the train when the discussion rolls around, so I hope I have connectivity, but if not I'll listen to the recording. At least that way I can skip ahead if the fellow who leads it gets prolix over an obvious point as he has a tendency to do. The academic curse; students above a certain age level are too polite to say 'Zip it! We got the idea already." (High schoolers had no such restraint, and middle schoolers invariably signalled boredom by more physical means.)
Anyway I had the leisure, for the first time in a couple of months, to make chocolate chip cookies. So I can have those and tea and do some reading. Heigh ho, I will go do that now.
As I did the morning walk with the little dog, and listened to the local crows up in the eucalyptus and pines, I wondered if the crows that follow me at home were watching for me to come. Now that the sun is lowering a bit, we're back to increasing numbers, so I might have thirty or so swirling around me when I throw unsalted peanuts out. so exhilarating to watch them!
Here they don't know me, of course, so the calls can't be to let me know they are there. I'm sure the lives of humans are ignorable, except as annoyances that send them into the trees. I wondered about that sky civilization as I trod the path to the dog park. So much going on at the tops of the trees, that we barely notice!
It's such a relief not to be toiling with packing, though of course unpacking lies in wait to pounce when I get back. Then I'll only have three or four days before I take off for my October east trip, so most of my share of the unloading will await me on my return. The big job (and the fun one) is the library.
Speaking of, since it's Wednesday, let's see, what have I been reading? The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell, which is part of a book discussion that I've been following since the start of the year. One book a month in Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series. The discussion happens at the start of each month over Zoom, and what interests me is how folks from either side of the Atlantic read the work. Also, non-genre reading. This time I'll be on the train when the discussion rolls around, so I hope I have connectivity, but if not I'll listen to the recording. At least that way I can skip ahead if the fellow who leads it gets prolix over an obvious point as he has a tendency to do. The academic curse; students above a certain age level are too polite to say 'Zip it! We got the idea already." (High schoolers had no such restraint, and middle schoolers invariably signalled boredom by more physical means.)
Anyway I had the leisure, for the first time in a couple of months, to make chocolate chip cookies. So I can have those and tea and do some reading. Heigh ho, I will go do that now.