seperis | Educationally Speaking

our last real days in Wales

Yesterday was forecast to have much better weather than today, and yesterday and today were our last days in Wales, so yesterday we did our last big hike! We caught a bus to Borth, on the coast about twenty minutes north of here, and spent four hours walking back home along that section of the Wales Coast Path. (We'd considered going south, but the description we found of the path south from Aberystwyth basically said "you immediately start by going steeply upward for a six-hundred-meter rise without a break" and that was it for that option, buh-bye.) It was a lovely day! No rain except for a brief misting just as we started, a strong breeze that kept us cool even on the steep upslopes where we were working hard, and it was always coming off the ocean so we didn't, you know, get blown over the cliff to our deaths. (I did get almost blown off my feet landward once or twice, and I always kept my hiking pole on the cliff side, so that it would always be pushing me toward safety.)

I mean, it's not that dangerous! People hike it constantly, including the trail runners who passed us over a different section a few days ago, and we met another runner on the path yesterday! But I can get a bit freaked out, and I'm always a little nervous about bad footing even when I'm not on a cliff edge, so I (we) take it slow.

We also take it slow because we want to admire the amazing views! Here's Geoff on the trail about half an hour after we started, still kitted up for rain although it had stopped by then:

We had started from the near/right end of the beach that's just over his head, so you can see we'd already climbed a fair bit. The day involved a lot of ups and downs; check this out:

Wales Coast Path between Borth and Aberystwyth

If you open the actual picture rather than this thumbnail and zoom in, you can see the path, just on the outside of the main fence (for pretty much the whole way, we were walking with a fence on our left and a cliff edge on our right). Unusually, there's a fence between the path and the cliff edge for a little way here as well, where the cliff edge has eroded even closer to the path than usual. Then the path descends very steeply to sea level, where there's a track from a field out to the water; there's a little footbridge over a small stream (and also a bunch of rubbish someone dumped there, which was upsetting to see but thankfully was also unique in our experience), and then the path climbs equally steeply up the facing cliff, which you can't see but you can see a bit of it right at the top (bottom left of the picture), where it's contouring around the rise so that the dropoff is briefly on the left (as you walk southward toward the camera) instead of on the right.

Down at the very bottom, by the footbridge, this sign was posted:

an isolated shoreline with a warning sign

saying, in Welsh and English, "CAUTION: There is no lifeguard service on this beach," and all I could think was "No kidding."

We'd read that there can be seals and dolphins in these waters, but we didn't see any: only sheep in the fields, and seagulls, and a kestrel hovering absolutely motionless in the air, almost even with us and far above the shoreline below, close enough that we could watch all the constant tiny motions and adjustments it was making to hover so perfectly motionlessly in one spot. It was like a bird of prey version of a hummingbird!

We had the usual cheerful exchanges with other walkers, and the usual rest stops to drink water and eat trail mix. I bought bags of mixed nuts and mixed dried fruit a few towns ago, and so we mix them together and that's our trail mix; but the mixed dried fruit I found was really meant for baking, not snacking, so it has raisins, sultanas, currants, and also bits of candied lemon and orange peel. It makes the trail mix feel rather posh!

The last bit into Aberystwyth was a hard climb up the hill at the north end of the bay we're on, but worth it for the views (and also the sense of accomplishment). We did see a seal on the beach as we walked along the promenade back to our hotel, but sadly it was dead.

We had a very tasty dinner at a hotel restaurant just up the beach that was recommended by one of the staff here, and then we had a great treat! When we were walking around town the day before, just looking around (and buying me new gear), we'd passed a bar/event venue called the Bank Vault, and the schedule posted outside said that the next night would be performances by members of the Aberystwyth Folk Music Society! Well, we couldn't miss that! So we skipped our usual local beer with dinner (we told the waitress we were going to a bar with live music after dinner, and she immediately said, "Oh, the Bank Vault? That's a great place."

There was no cover charge, but we shared four half-pints of three different beers, and when we ordered the last one we told the guy pulling them "and one for yourself as well," which the waitress at dinner had told us was an appropriate way to tip. (She said they wouldn't expect it but would be pleased, and his reaction bore that out. I saw someone else leaving a few coins on the bar when he picked up his drink.)

a few comments on masking

I forgot to say that, on the bus from Fishguard to Aberystwyth, we saw the first person masking, other than us, that we've seen on this entire trip! Just some guy, our age or a little older, he got on and rode for a few stops and got off again, but I almost did a doubletake.

And we've been eating indoors without masking because we don't have other good options, but we did mask in the Bank Vault, briefly lowering the mask to take a sip of beer and then replacing it before inhaling again. And we've masked in all the shops we've been in, and -- jumping ahead to today -- while we were looking around the National Library. And once again nobody blinked an eye, or did a doubletake, or acted weird about interacting with us, even though we are being, statistically, very weird. I've really appreciated that.

The music last night varied from "that was definitely a song, I'll say that for it" to really, really good. Nearly all the performers were older (or just plain old) men, but there were a couple of younger people and a couple of women in the mix. (Literally two women, in two make/female duos. Those duos had the best songs by far.) The first performer played an accordion, most of the rest had guitars, and here's a picture of a guy with a harmonium:

It was a pretty small space; what the picture shows is almost the whole ground floor. I took the photo with my back against the small bar, and then there was a stairway behind that going up to a second level, from which our waitress had said you could look down on the performance space, but we didn't go up there; we liked our seats at the bar, where we had a great view and also could keep trying local beers! They had fourteen options on tap, and the bartender was happy to let us sample anything before committing to it:

And then around ten pm we staggered home to bed.

Today was forecast to be much worse weather, meaning rain all day, but it turned out to be lovely! It did start out raining, and I made the unpleasant discovery that my new rain pants are slightly too short, and allow water to run off the bottom of the pant leg into the front of my boots. Fortunately, we had bought short rain gaiters for this trip, although we hadn't ever actually used them! But I put mine on and they fixed the problem perfectly, which is of course what they're meant to do. And then it turned into nice weather anyway.

Today we stuck around town; my knee was bothering me a little and we didn't want to try another strenuous hike anyway. We wandered through town some more and then climbed the steep but short hill up to the National Library of Wales! They had a couple of exhibits on; I was particularly interested in the one documenting protests against the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley in 1965 for the sake of Liverpool's water supply, which meant destroying a Welsh village, but I was also curious to see whatever was included in the "treasures" on display. In the end, though, we mostly just wandered around the building, admiring old books on display in beautiful cabinets. The Tryweryn Valley exhibit was smaller (and the story less well documented, for those of us who knew nothing about it) than I'd hoped, and I completely forgot to look for the other ones! And then we wandered home along a new route, just to see some different things, and now are back in the hotel catching up on blogging before dinner.

So mostly today was a winding-down day. Tomorrow we take a train to the outskirts of London, so that we can easily get to Heathrow the next morning!

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The fact that the option to enroll in extended security updates for Windows 10 hasn't shown up yet on my PC is stressing me out.

I almost regret not buying a Windows 11 capable PC a few years ago (how hard they're pushing Copilot/AI stuff turned me off it and the news about one of the Windows 11 updates bricking SSDs doesn't fill me with confidence).

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...and the person I reported it to didn’t seem too concerned Content advisory: ableism, and also sexual harassment. ( Read more... )

gift link (with three other questions answered)

My husband and I moved into an apartment complex recently. We befriended some of our new neighbors while sitting around the swimming pool. We have discussed politics with some of them, having been given hints that we are all on the same page. But one couple — whom we like a lot — has provided no information about their politics. We have no idea where they stand! The state of the country is very important to us, and we are willing to socialize only with people who support our beliefs. Should we continue to see this couple whose politics are a mystery, or should we tell them where we stand and see how they react?

NEW NEIGHBOR

( answer )

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Last night at this time, I was on what ended up to be a 90 minute (or more - I left after 90 minutes) call with other shareholders in my building to discuss options for complying with local law 97, which is all about reducing carbon emissions. It was informative, though as usual, the people running these meetings are bad at it it, and 2 people basically monopolized all the Q&A time with very specific-to-them concerns instead of applicable-to-all-tenants stuff, but at least nobody accused the board of being racist for muting them, which is what happened the last time I joined a building-related zoom call. Still only about a quarter of the people who live here showed up, which I find inexplicable considering the financial considerations involved. While no final decision was made, it seems like there will be a recommendation to take one of the incremental measures while continuing to explore the more expensive (but not the ludicrously expensive most expensive) options. So we'll see how that goes. If it helps my apartment not to turn into a sauna going forward, I am interested!

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Baby Miss L is still trying to finalize her Halloween costume, but as with last year, there may be multiple outfits as she has a very full social calendar. She has gotten better about school, too - apparently she waves hello to everyone as she enters, and I imagine they all appreciate her attention. *g* I have also started compiling a list of books to buy her for her birthday and Christmas, which I guess I'll start shopping for soon.

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I complain about work fairly often, but today I learned that 1. they've confirmed that our insurance will cover covid jabs for everyone who uses it, and 2. they're giving us 2 extra paid holidays this year since both 12/26 and 1/2 fall on Fridays. So I know I have it pretty good despite...everything happening in the world to try to ruin public health and nonprofits.

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I can't remember if I posted about the very addictive phone game I recently downloaded, but after several lelvels where the only way to advance was to spend money to get helpful items, I deleted it. I can't be spending that kind of money and I am definitely the kind of person who needs to defeat the puzzles, even though I can see they are specifically designed to not be beatable without those helpful items. It's one reason I don't gamble or play "real" video games - I tend to get feverishly obsessive about winning and neither sleep nor money matter to me in that state. *hands* At least I know this about myself? Idk, but it felt good to delete the game even though I am still craving it.

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The Mets snapped their losing streak on Sunday and still control their destiny in terms of a wild card spot, but given how poorly they've played for so long, this series with San Diego feels like a playoff game already. We'll see if they can hold the early lead. ....and now Lindor goes deep! <333

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We can hear the surf crashing just outside our window!

So, yeah, we got to Aberystwyth with no problem on a scenic three-hour bus ride. I have no idea how drivers manage big vehicles on these roads, and the secret is, sometimes they don't; at one point one lane of the (theoretically) two-lane road (one lane in each direction, that is) (well, two-thirds of a lane in each direction) anyway one lane was closed, and the driver couldn't turn the bus into the other lane, avoiding parked cars and cars waiting to come the other way, until he got out and moved one of the "lane closed" signs a couple of feet back. And there were plenty of times when the roadside hedge was audibly brushing the bus windows as we went by, and a couple of times when we came around a corner to find ourselves abruptly almost nose to nose with an oncoming car, which usually had to back up to let the bus complete the turn. Disconcerting to those of us used to wide North American roads with generous sidewalks or breakdown lanes; utterly unremarkable to the locals.

Aberystwyth is the big city compared to where we've been! According to Wikipedia, the twin towns of Fishguard and Goodwick, that we just came from, have a population of about 5400; Aberystwyth has maybe 18,000 depending on where you look? (And whether you're counting the university students, who won't arrive until just as we leave.) We went from the bus station first to the tourist info, where we picked up some flyers on coastal walks and such; then we staggered into the extremely strong wind coming off the ocean to our hotel, which was half a block from the shore.

Well. What we expected to be our hotel. It turned out to be a "self-check-in" place, meaning unstaffed; you walk in the unlocked door and the front desk has no human, just some folders with people's names on them, and you find yours and in it are your room key, hotel info, etc. You know you're in a low-crime area when! But there was no folder for us.

I poked my head further into the hotel and found a couple of guests in the lounge, who showed me the rather tucked-away button on the desk that might summon a staffer. It did not. So I phoned the number on the hotel's business card, a stack of which were also on the desk, and the guy who answered said a) he had no record of ever receiving our reservation through Booking.com, and b) the hotel was full, no vacancies. He was apologetic about it (while also anxious to assure me that he wasn't holding my money; Booking.com was), but there was flat-out nothing he could do.

I've never had that happen before! (Not that I use B.c that often, I always prefer to book direct, but sometimes either a hotel has completely outsourced its booking to third parties like B.c or B.c just has better rates and cancellation policies.) I had multiple confirmations from B.c, but apparently they were all auto-sent without the hotel's involvement.

So that was stressful! Geoff and I camped out in the hotel's wee lobby for a bit. I had my printout of B.c's confirmation in one hand, their website open on my ipad in my lap, and with my other hand I was phoning B.c customer support. Fortunately I did connect quickly with a human, who put me on hold briefly to call the hotel himself and confirm that they couldn't house me (I presume to ensure that I wasn't just trying to scam an upgrade) and then told me that B.c would cancel that booking and email me some possible alternatives, and I could book one of them and B.c would pick up any extra cost above what the original place would have cost.

He said the email might take 30-45 minutes to arrive, but in fact it took only a few minutes -- which I expected to be the case, since it's all automated; it's not like there was someone hand-curating my options, although the agent's spiel made it sound like there was. I picked the one with the best B.c reviews that was close by and on the shoreline, hastily booked it, and off we went into the wind again!

The new hotel is actually in a slightly better location and has an actually staffed front desk (by incredibly cheerful and friendly young women), and we're on the second floor ("first" to Brits) with a bay window looking directly out at the beach and the waves rolling in. (Today they're rolling. Yesterday they were crashing. Either way it's a lovely sound to fall asleep to.) There's also a small table and two chairs in the bay, to sit in and watch the ocean, but frankly Geoff has dumped his stuff all over them (my stuff is dumped all over the floor on the other side of the bed) and we like to just sit in bed, from which we have almost as good a view. And the bathroom is large, and has plenty of flat space on which to put toiletries etc., and also has a tub. Yay!

The only difficulty now is that I am absolutely morally certain that the agent told me on the phone that if I chose one of the options B.c sent me, they'd pick up the whole price difference; but the email actually says that they'll pick up up to £51 and change. The actual price difference is £105. I'm prepared to fight them on this (the phone call "may have been recorded for training and verification purposes," after all), but if we lose, well, worse things happen at sea.

Once we'd successfully checked in to the new place, we went out to stretch our legs and look around the center of town a bit. And we started by going back to an outdoor-gear store we'd walked past on our way to the tourist info, that was having a going-out-of-business sale!

I'd realized a few days before that the coating that lined my rain pants was disintegrating; they were shedding a fine white grit. And they had eventually soaked through, in that storm we were in. Durable water repellency doesn't endure forever. Also, my everyday backpack is a basic Jansport school bag; it's fine for its intended use, and I like that it's big enough to serve as weekend luggage (I'd say it's thirty liters) while still small enough to fit under an airplane seat, but when I load it up with rain pants, rain jacket, one or two midlayers, one or two water bottles, lunch, emergency first aid supplies, and so on for a serious day's hiking, I really regret its lack of a waist belt. Also I only have a cheap third-party rain cover for it, which you may remember proved totally inadequate against a real rainstorm. (I sure remember.) And, the other day, I noticed a thinning at its bottom where the material was beginning to think about wearing through; not immediately, but that's not something I want to run risks with. And I don't have a rain cover for my big (seventy-liter) hiking pack at all.

So we stopped into the store and I scored heavily discounted replacements for all of the above! Including a thirty-liter daypack with not only a proper waist belt and ventilated back panel but -- what I didn't realize until I got it back to the hotel and was exploring all its pocketses in detail -- its own integrated rain cover! Win.

After that we just wandered around a bit, and spent a good amount of time clambering around the ruins of the coastal castle, which was fun and dramatic and also very windy omg. We eyeballed a bunch of restaurants, but nothing screamed out "eat here" to us.

So we went back and had dinner in the hotel restaurant, because we were not up for researching a place; I had done enough frantic internet juggling for one day.

me at dinner last night: I think I'll have a big glass of wine.

Geoff: You should. You deserve it.

me: I had a very stressful five minutes!

(He did loyally remind me that in fact it was longer than that.)

Behold the cover of Platform Decay:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2025/09/16/murderbot-book-platform-decay-martha-wells/86165029007/

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+: Christine brought us to the bus station to catch the bus to Aberystwyth in good time, and the ride went smoothly

-: When we arrived in Aberystwyth, the hotel we had a multiply confirmed reservation at had never heard of us

+: We managed to hastily book what is probably a nicer hotel in just as good a location

???: Booking.com said on the phone that they'd cover the difference in price, but I'll believe it when I see it

+: The new hotel has a full bathtub

-: I have discovered, over the course of this trip, that some of my gear is on its last legs

+: We walked past an outdoor gear store having a going-out-of-business sale, and now I have new ~~toys~~ gear!

...After a Family Death. ( Read more... )

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Sometimes Purrcy is just such a funny little gremlin, wiggling around lovingly, showing the trap that is the soft soft underbelly.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby wiggles upside down, showing his belly, looking very silly and touchable and not at all like someone who will grab any hand that infringes his airspace.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby wiggles upside down, showing his belly, looking very silly and touchable and not at all like someone who will grab any hand that infringes his airspace.

In college I got in the habit of taking my shower at night to avoid the rush & I never stopped. Nowadays Purrcy often comes in after I'm done to Stalk the Wild Drips, and he'll mew at me if there aren't enough.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is gazing intently up a wet shower wall, waiting for a Wild Drip to appear

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is gazing intently up a wet shower wall, waiting for a Wild Drip to appear

This past week was officially Too Much. I've been spending too much time on social media, doomscrolling and distractionscrolling. And then reading things to distract my self, and playing particularly pointless games, which in my case is using our NYTimes Games subscription to play Tiles over & over & over again, especially the New Haven tileset, which is just colors, no patterns.

I've got a lot to *do*, but I'm so agitated by the Horrors. I was really worried last week that we were heading for a full Reichstag Fire event. Now I've *got* to wean myself off social media, which at this point is just Bluesky, and buckle down and deal with my to-do list. Maybe I'll try adding a sentence to my DW post draft every time I feel tempted to open it up again, see how that works.

Now that you've registered for Escapade 36 and made your hotel reservation (you have, haven't you??), and if you haven't, here's all you need to know about registration and hotel:

https://escapadecon.net/escapade-36-hotel-and-registration-information/

It's time to tell us what you want to see for programming!

We always have ideas, but we want Escapade programming to reflect what YOU'RE interested in talking about.

Best way to let us know what you want is to head over and make panel suggestions! Everything is welcome, from the Golden Oldies to the Newest Shiny, from plain old squee to serious thinky things.

If you're one of those people who loves to bounce ideas off of other folks, we will be having panel submission brainstorming parties, dates and times TBD.

The form is open and ready for you to give us all your great ideas:

https://escapadecon.net/panels/panel-nomination/

Deadline to make panel suggestions is December 16, 2025.

https://escapadecon.net/escapade-36-panel-suggestions-open/

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My original plan was to make pork chops with peach butter for dinner tonight, but then no peaches arrived with my grocery order, so I did a quick pivot to pork chops in lemon-caper sauce (NYT gift link) and they are delicious. I think it would also be very good with chicken if you don't eat pork (or eggplant, which seems to be my veggie substitute for meat these days, though it is more labor-intensive).

Anyway, I substituted a half-cup of chicken broth with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar for the wine and forgot to add the flour until I'd already added the broth, but it all turned out all right. Definitely recommended!

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In other news, I've had Saja Boys' Soda Pop stuck in my head all day. "Tom's Diner" vanquishes it briefly but then it returns. It's a cute song! Very catchy! I'd like to not have it in my head all day!

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Title: Voice in My Throat
Fandom: Sense8
Music: "Voice in My Throat" by Pearl & The Beard
Summary:

I walk down the road and I'm alone again but | All these years I've travelled down a lonely pathway
You will be the voice in my throat | You have been the voice in my throat

Notes: Made for

colls for

fandomtrumpshate

AO3 | DW | Tumblr

by which I mean work! Fun work!

Before we left on this trip, we'd booked a sea kayaking tour for today; with only two full days here, the idea was to spend one of them hiking along the tops of the coastal cliffs, and the other admiring them from below. Also we go lake kayaking at home, which we enjoy a lot though it is of course orders of magnitude more gentle than sea kayaking! We booked a similar sea kayaking tour in New Zealand years ago and really loved it.

But it was a lot warmer in New Zealand. And we weren't quite so tired. ~~and we were a lot younger~~ After the day we hiked through sideways hail, we both agreed that we'd just as soon give it a miss. But of course we were well past the company's free cancellation deadline. But fortunately (??) the forecast for today was for heavy rain and high winds. The kayaking company wrote to us a few days ago saying that the outlook was bad, and would we be willing to switch our booking to Saturday (yesterday)? No, we said, so sorry, we can't do that; and crossed our fingers. And indeed, on late Friday evening they cancelled Sunday's trip and said they'd refund us. (I haven't actually checked, but I assume the refund has gone through, or will on Monday.)

So we were off the hook! As I said in an earlier post, we laid in food (and beer) yesterday for tonight's dinner, so we wouldn't have to go out. And Geoff had the brilliant idea of asking Mike and Christine if they'd be willing to show us around the farm a bit today, maybe we could offer unskilled help with whatever they were doing? So we asked, if it wouldn't be intrusive (I mean, it's their home, and Mike's son is visiting), could we participate in their work today? And they were pretty surprised, I think, but said sure!

This morning I made a big breakfast for us with three of the six eggs, two of the four sausages, all the cherry tomatoes that hadn't gone off, three of the five huge mushrooms, and half a red onion that we'd also bought the day before, because for Geoff it's just not an omelet (well, a scramble) without onion. It was delicious.

They said they'd likely be at work in the barn behind the house around ten, and we'd be welcome to come by; but when we started over there a few minutes past the hour, Christine saw us passing their door and nipped out to say they hadn't started yet. So we suggested they just come by whenever they were ready for us, and went back to lounge about a while longer. Finally Mike came by and said he was on his way to the barn to split logs, and if we really wanted to come help, we'd be welcome.

It was ferociously windy and gusting rain, sometimes quite heavily. (Definitely not a kayaking day!) (At least, it was ferociously windy to us, but Mike said that 50kph winds are nothing, around here. Eep.) We put on rain gear, but to my private relief we ended up actually working inside the barn. (Mostly.) Mike was sitting at a powered log-splitter (somewhat like this https://www.homedepot.com/p/YARDMAX-6-5-Ton-15-Amp-Horizontal-Electric-Log-Splitter-YS0650/323678117), with huge tarpaulin bags of cut logs behind him, and it was our job to keep handing him logs to split, keep another bag positioned for him to toss the split ones into, and haul away the bags of split ones when they reached max haulable weight, piling them against a wall of the barn to be moved further (and sorted into shorter ones that would fit in their own home's wood stove and longer ones that would fit in the rental's) sometime later. Geoff also went out into the rain a couple of times to bring in wheelbarrows-full of more logs. Meanwhile Mike's son Aneurin was dealing with their apple harvest; they have I don't know how many apple trees, but I can see through our own window some trees absolutely flush with apples, and the strong wind meant lots of windfalls; so they had to be picked up and brought in and sorted into best quality/not so great quality/use right away, and the first two categories at least had to be put away, each variety separately in its own part of their apple storage cabinet. (Mike called it the apple store, meaning storage of apples; it looked like a tall enclosed cabinet with shelves, and I'd try to find a picture of the kind of thing I mean except that I know you understand that searching for "apple store" will not turn up anything relevant.)

Anyway, it was fun! We borrowed work gloves so our hands were protected, and I was careful of my back, and in about two hours we'd helped him split, at a very very rough guess, maybe fifty cubic feet of wood? We filled seven tarp bags to the limit of the weight that Geoff and I could haul to the side. I know that Mike couldn't have worked so fast alone, and we freed up Aneurin to deal with the apples; Christine was inside their house cooking and also directing Aneurin whenever he had a question about the apples that Mike couldn't answer. Certainly he and Christine seemed genuinely pleased to have us helping; Mike said a couple of times that we should come back, and we'd find the Cwtsh (our rental space) heated by wood we'd helped split!

Once all the wood was split, he invited us into their house for tea! Christine welcomed us in and made impressed sounds when Mike told her we'd filled seven bags of split logs. The kitchen, which was the room we walked right into, is a wonderful space. She said that when they bought the house about twenty-five years ago, she initially didn't like it at all; it had been redone badly and uglily in the seventies (a drop ceiling instead of that gorgeous medieval vault! Terrible colors!), and they tore all that out and restored it to what it had been, except of course with all mod cons. Her oven and hob are tucked into the huge stone arch that was the original fireplace, and the ironwork chain and hook that were originally over the fire, to suspend the cooking pot from, are now hanging decoratively from the rafters. She has floor-to-ceiling shelves on one wall that are largely filled with enameled cast iron pots and pans; I expressed my admiration!

Mike took us further into the house to a small solarium, filled with plants; he successfully grows pineapples there, as well as a cinnamon plant, frangipani, limes and lemons, and more that I can't remember. (Imagine being in a Welsh market and seeing pineapple for sale labeled "locally grown"!) We oohed and aaahed, and then came back out to have tea with the two of them and Aneurin, although Aneurin looked at his phone and excused himself once he'd finished his cup. We chatted about what Geoff and I do for work, and Christine told us about working in professional storytelling and also writing a book of local folktales (https://www.amazon.com/Pembrokeshire-Folk-Tales-United-Kingdom/dp/0752465651 -- there's a copy of it in the Cwtsh but I hadn't realized it was by her!), and also about falling in love with the property despite its hideous 1970s tat when they learned that it has its own spring-fed water supply. We talked briefly about the awfulness of climate change. (I forgot to say that earlier, one of the times she'd come by our place for some reason, I'd said something that made clear I was originally American, "but these days I don't admit it," and she shudderingly concurred, and added that they have a swear jar in the house, and every time That Man's name is mentioned, the offender has to put a pound in.)

They invited us to stay for lunch; but we demurred. I at least didn't want to overstay our welcome even though they pressed us a bit, and I didn't want them to feel pressured to socialize at the expense of getting necessary work done (there's a lot more to do; Mike described a lot of work that's going to be done in and to the barn, in preparation for which a lot of space has to be cleared in it), and I was a little socialized out, to be honest, and wanted to have a chance to relax and also catch up on blogging! Also we really have overbought food -- we still have bags of nuts and dried fruit for hiking that we haven't even opened yet -- and while I'd always rather have too much food than too little (especially on long hikes; imagine if that sideways-hail hike had been even longer and worse, and if we hadn't had plenty of calories available if we'd needed them), we really didn't want to spoil our appetites for dinner, when our wee fridge is bursting with the food we laid in yesterday.

So we said many thank-yous on both sides, and Geoff and I came back to our space. Mike commented that the rain would probably stop in good time for us to have a dry, if windy, evening walk, but we've just been sitting around contentedly on our devices (and Geoff had his usual-when-he-can afternoon nap). Tomorrow Christine will give us a lift down to the bus station, where we'll catch a 10:48 bus to Aberystwyth; the timing apparently works well with an appointment she has, which is great.

It's been a fabulous visit, and I'm sorry it's so short. The location has its inconveniences (and cooking for ourselves? on vacation? what?) but overall this is a great place to stay, the sort of thing AirB&B originally marketed itself as (they are listed on AirB&B, but we booked directly, which I think they much preferred). We've loved both the space and the chance to spend time with them!

Now Geoff is busy figuring out how to work the oven, to heat up our pies and chips, and I'm finally catching up to now here!

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Geoff is the primary photographer of our trips, just as I'm the primary logisticker. But I have taken a few photos that I thought folks might like to see.

And if you don't, that's what cut tags are for!

This was the view from our first hotel room, in Bishop's Castle:

A view across Bishop's Castle and the hills beyond

This is a pretty representative image of what the easier parts of our hikes have looked like. (On the harder parts I haven't been getting my phone out except to navigate with!)

Some rolling countryside near Kington, Herefordshire

This was the cheese I bought for a picnic lunch in Hay-on-Wye. How could I resist?

This was the path we walked along the River Wye:

and this is what it looked like when we got out into the meadow and had lunch:

A moderately wide, placid river between wooded shores

This was just part of the breakfast spread awaiting us in our Fishguard B&B:

(Yes, a few of the tomatoes had unfortunately gone a bit moldy by the time we got to them. But the others were delicious.)

and this is the ladder up to our sleeping loft!

Our long-delayed front porch and mudroom project finally began construction while we've been away, and within a couple of days they notified us that they'd found dry rot and more asbestos. This house, I swear.

As God is my witness, I will have a mudroom this winter!

A beautiful hike in unexpectedly beautiful weather

The morning dawned cloudy with intermittent bursts of rain. For some reason all we wanted for breakfast (aside from coffee with that delicious local milk) was toasted laverbread with butter and jam! The bread is crumbly and hard to slice, so we sometimes ended up with more chunks then slices, and there's something in it that makes my tongue tingle, but it tastes good and it's exceedingly Welsh and I so rarely have butter and jam, it's just not usually my thing, so it was a big treat. But all that beautiful sausage and bacon and the eggs (two of their hens lay blue eggs! Four of our six eggs are blue!) went unloved.

Mike came by to say hi and check in, and showed us radar on his phone suggesting that the rainburst that had just passed would actually be the last one; the official BBC forecast was for (possibly thundery) showers off and on all day, but the radar showed nice clear skies coming in from the west. (He said that he often finds the Irish forecast more useful than the British one, since that's where the weather's coming from.) So we set off walking around noon. We asked him and Christine, who also stopped by on her way to tend to the chickens, what the best way to get from here to the coast path would be, and they gave us directions northward on the road, past a cemetery and a small named settlement/farmhouse and a church that was attacked by about 1400 French soldiers in the last ever invasion of the British Isles, in 1797. The soldiers mostly absconded and/or got drunk, one local woman is reputed to have rounded up eight of them while armed only with a pitchfork, the invasion fell apart, and a peace treaty was signed on the site of the pub we had dinner at last night. One of the local attractions that we will not make time to see is a tapestry depicting the battle, modeled after the Bayeaux Tapestry.

Anyway, after the church Mike's directions degenerated into "I don't know, find a path, follow your instincts!" Which was reasonable, considering that the coast path we were aiming for runs, you know, along the coast, and we could see the water from the churchyard, so when we found a path marked as a public footpath leaving the road and heading toward it, we took it, and indeed it shortly intersected the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. (Wales has a marked and maintained footpath/hiking trail running the entire length of its coast, which is amazing.)

The B&B is north-northwest of the town, and we went north to reach the coast path, so our plan was to turn right and follow it east and south again, back to the town's harbor, and thence home. And Mike was right; the weather was absolutely beautiful, sunny with clouds but never even a threat of rain, and although it was sometimes briefly quite windy, it was always blowing onshore from the water. Which was a good thing, because a good chunk of this part of the path runs along high rocky cliffs over the ocean. Signs on some of the gates leading from farmers' fields warn, "CLIFFS KILL. Stay on the path," and indeed, as I think Buffy once said, "Fall down there, be dead a long time." I never felt genuinely in danger, the footing was generally good although sometimes a steep scramble up or down and we each have a good hiking pole, but I did once make the mistake of imagining what falling would feel like, and I kind of freaked myself out. I was glad when the path moved away from the cliff edge again. And we never admired scenery while walking; we always stopped first and then looked around. I would definitely not want to do that walk in stormy weather.

The path wound up and around, edged with gorse and other brush, and giving us some great views of waves hitting the cliffs, and places where the cliff had calved into the sea. As well as fields on the inland side, of course, but we didn't actually see any livestock in them. (Though at times there was certainly a lot of manure.) We saw the big ferry making its way from Fishguard Harbor toward Ireland. We stopped now and then to eat handfuls of trail mix and drink water and watch seagulls soaring far below us.

And at one point, when we'd been walking for maybe three hours in all, we were startled by a call from behind us of "Track!" and four trail runners overtook us! We're in boots, with poles and a pack and layers (including rain gear just in case, because hello), slogging along the hilly and precipitous terrain (happily! But slogging!), and they come cheerfully loping past us in Lycra shorts and t-shirts! We got out of their way, everybody said hello as they went by, and as the last guy passed me I said, "well, we're impressed!" and he called back something cheerful-sounding in Welsh. It definitely put our sense of trekking accomplishment in perspective!

Eventually we hit the outskirts of town, and descended on roads to the harbor. At the point where we left the coast path (and the coastal national park) a sign noted that, to control plant growth and encourage biodiversity, the area was being grazed by ponies! but unfortunately we didn't see any.

We didn't want to keep asking Mike for rides into and out of town, but we also didn't want to climb the steep hill back to the B&B late in the evening (extremely narrow road with no pedestrian walkway, after dark; also we just, you know, didn't want to climb the steep hill back to the B&B). So we hit a fish and chip shop on the harbor and got two huge pieces of fresh-fried cod, and also a large order of chips to share. I was the one who said "let's split a large," and holy shit a regular would have done; that order of chips would feed four. We sat in the sun on a concrete ramp leading down to the water (not the most comfy, but the benches in the actual waterside park area were exposed to the very strong wind) and managed to finish our fish and put at least a visible dent in the chips. Somewhat to my surprise, we were not harassed by seagulls! One or two landed fifteen or so feet away and eyed us consideringly, but never actually tried for our food. Very polite. So that was our early dinner, and we wouldn't need to go out later in the evening.

We also picked up some pies (one beef and onion, one chicken and mushroom, one Cornish pasty) and a couple of beers to bring back for the next day's dinner (tonight's), because today's weather was predicted to be abominable and we didn't want to have to go out.

We walked out on a long mole/breakwater into the harbor, just to see the water and the land from a different angle. I was amused that, although it was completely wide and firm and level and there was a wide flat path along it with lots of other people strolling out (and two teenage boys fishing off the far end), a sign at its foot warned that the breakwater was not designed or intended for pedestrian access, walk at your own risk; like, they disavow this completely easy and innocent stroll, but the cliff trail is public access?

There is a town bus that sometimes stops a hundred meters from the B&B (and that last hundred meters is virtually level; the bus covers all the steep climb), but trying to figure out exactly where we could catch it and which of its runs went to where we'd want and not somewhere else had defeated me in the pre-trip research. And if you think that sounds silly, here is a map of the bus route (the long thin thing sticking out is the breakwater we walked out on):

A map of a bus route that looks like a demented spiderweb

But Google Maps' transit info feature came to my aid, informing me that we could catch one going where we wanted in about half an hour. And waiting for the bus was a much more attractive idea than struggling on the road up the hill; we'd been out for almost five hours, and we were full and tired. So we hiked uphill a couple of blocks to what Google indicated was the right corner, and settled in to wait.

After a while a man came out of the pub across the street and called out to us that we'd be waiting quite a while, and we assured him that we knew that. He was waiting for the same bus in the opposite direction; it was going to arrive from the southwest, pick him up and bring him northeast, then reverse direction back to us, pick us up, and bring us west and north. It was very reassuring to have him confirm that it was coming! He also told us the fare: 95p each. I was confident that we'd be able to tap a credit card, since all the buses do that, but I asked him, just in case, and he said he wasn't sure, and actually came across the street to give us two pounds! So nice of him! But I knew I had two pound coins in my bag, and was digging them out. And when the bus arrived for him, he called out to us, before boarding, that he would tell the driver that we were waiting to be picked up on her return.

So he did, and we were, and we enjoyed the feeling of the bus laboring its way up the hill instead of us doing it. Then there were hot showers and a nice quiet evening, with cups of tea. It is very quiet here at night so far out of town (and, I mean, behind two-foot-thick walls).

That was yesterday, and I will post this before starting to try to write up today!

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A couple weeks ago, I finally realized I was never going to go to someone else to get my hair cut, so with some encouragement from my sister, this morning, I did an extensive detangling (both before and after washing) and then trimmed about 3" off the bottom myself. Is it even? Probably not, but it was in long layers, so I don't think it really matters. It will eventually even out as it grows and I trim it. Mostly what matters is that after 3 years, the old ends have been trimmed away. And now that I know I can do it, I will try to keep up with it on a more timely basis. At least, I don't think I'll let another 3 years go by. *wry*

*

The Mets did not get no-hit last night but they did lose, and then lost again today despite leading for 7.5 innings. *hands* There is something very wrong with this team, but who can say what? Sigh.

*

My husband is the middle of five siblings. The three oldest were high achievers who earned advanced degrees and are now comfortably retired, living far from their hometown. The fourth, a brother, has struggled all his life. After four years in the Army, he drifted between unemployment and low-paying jobs, never able to support himself. His parents covered his expenses or let him live with them, even paying for his car while he worked as a pizza-delivery driver. He also developed substance-abuse problems.

After my husband’s father died, the brother stayed in the family home, supposedly caring for their mother but, in fact, exploiting her. He drained her accounts to feed his habit and neglected her care, and after her death he was convicted of elder abuse — something his out-of-town siblings hadn’t realized was happening. Before she died, their mother begged them not to let him be homeless.

Because the brother couldn’t maintain the house, the siblings sold it and split the proceeds. With his share, they bought him a mobile home and placed funds in a protected account, which covered rent and utilities for nearly 10 years until the money ran out. They eventually transferred the bills into his name and explained how to manage them.

He rarely communicates with the family, except when he’s in trouble. Once on his own, chaos followed. He claimed that his pizza-delivery job was enough to live on, but he missed rent, faced eviction and squandered money on predatory car loans and endless repairs. Last year, his siblings discovered that his car had been repossessed and his water had been shut off for six months. His trailer was collapsing from a leaking roof, and garbage was piled everywhere. Yet he had never asked for help. They stepped in, restored utilities, reclaimed his car, cleaned his trailer and signed him up for Social Security. But he quickly burned through a lump-sum back-pay benefit (he said his account was hacked, though he was more likely scammed). Soon after, he fell behind again, and his Social Security is now being garnished by the I.R.S.

The mobile-home park wants him out for unpaid rent and unsafe conditions. He’s clearly mentally ill, but perhaps not impaired enough for a sibling to secure guardianship. My husband and his siblings want to honor their mother’s plea to keep him housed, but contributing to his rent payments and repairing his trailer isn’t financially sustainable for them, and none of them want to take him in because he’s horrible to live with. Social services might help, but he resists cooperation and can’t manage on his own.

So they wonder: At what point do they stop trying? Are they obliged to sustain someone who refuses to sustain himself? Do they owe him the effort of seeking guardianship, or is that more than can reasonably be asked? — Name Withheld

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We managed to pack all our stuff up again and move on to Fishguard!

An uneventful last morning in Hay-on-Wye: we had breakfast, chatting again with Mary. Geoff meant to ask her about the local effects of Brexit (prefacing the question with "I know this might be a sensitive or political subject, if you don't want to talk about it I certainly understand"), but she misheard and thought he was asking about the local experience of COVID.

So that's what we ended up hearing about!

She said it wasn't so bad; there were a handful of deaths, mostly among the elderly (one man was a hundred and three), but not much sickness otherwise, although she did also mention the twenty-something son of a friend who was very ill and has never fully recovered. When they were under lockdown, the whole community divvied up responsibility for checking on people; she was responsible for one side of her street, and every day she would go knock on doors and check in, take grocery requests and deliver the groceries after the designated shopper had got them, and so on. (The nearest grocery store is actually in England, over the border, and they were under a different set of restrictions, but the people tasked with getting everyone's groceries just went anyway, because the alternative was to go ridiculously far to the nearest one in Wales, in Brecon.) In one row of houses inhabited mostly by older people, they would all sit out in their back gardens and chat across the fences. One day one of the women Mary was checking on didn't answer her door, and the neighbors said they hadn't seen her the previous day but since the weather had been bad they hadn't thought anything of it; but Mary figured, well, risk or no risk I've got to go in and check on her. So she went in, and the woman wasn't sick but had fallen quite badly; it sounded like she'd dislocated her knee! Mary knew some first aid from having worked with the Scouts and got it back in, and within two days the woman was basically fine.

Mary said that probably COVID hadn't been so bad there because it's so isolated and everyone is mostly spread out; I mean, yes there's a town, but it's not city-dense, and there's also plenty of people up on the farms who might see no one for a week at a time. She hadn't heard anything about the horrific death rates in the Montreal seniors' homes, or the refrigerated trucks outside the New York City hospitals, or (I assume) the huge pop-up hospitals in China, etc.; I got the sense that her local experience was just that the community put their heads down and got on with it. She at least, and her circle, weren't paying much attention to the larger situation. It was wonderful to hear about such solid and thorough community mutual care!

Then we packed up (paranoically checking for anything that might have rolled out of sight and be at risk of being left behind), shouldered our own huge hiking packs for the first time since landing at Heathrow, and walked ten minutes to a bus stop on the street below Hay Castle.

(I love my huge hiking pack, by the way. I can carry so much with, relatively speaking, so little effort, because it's well made and balanced. It's from Osprey; they make excellent gear.)

I had discovered by the merest fluke, about two weeks before we started this trip, that the bus we were depending on to get from Hay-on-Wye to the Hereford rail station had been cancelled and replaced by a different service, run by a different company, and leaving fifteen minutes earlier. Thank God I saw that! Although I probably would have discovered it anyway, if somewhat later, in the course of last-minute double-checking; there's several reasons I'm mostly in charge of logistics on our trips, but my tendency toward compulsive re-confirmation is certainly one of them. I'd even found a live bus tracker and checked on the previous day or two to get a sense of whether it tended to run on time, because it only runs every two hours and if we missed it we'd be in trouble. Anyway, thankfully it wasn't raining, and we got to the stop in plenty of time, had a pleasant wait (including chatting with another waiting passenger), and got on with no trouble.

We really weren't much of tourists in Hay-on-Wye. We wandered through the castle lawn but didn't pay to go inside; we wandered through bookshops but didn't explore the town otherwise; we strolled along the river path. I couldn't tell you a thing about its history. But we had a nice restful time there!

The bus ride to Hereford rail station was an hour long. The bus route began about a half hour before where we boarded, and there were six or eight people already on it when we arrived; I think three got off, and we were two of about eight getting on, at least half also with luggage, clearly traveling some distance/going on a trip. After that more and more people got on at the various stops in various small towns (interestingly, the bus also seemed to stop when waved down for a pickup, or when a passenger asked to get off, even when it wasn't a posted stop). But I don't think anyone got off again until we'd reached the outskirts of Hereford. I suppose people go into the big city for various things they can't get in the little towns, but have little reason to go from town to town, unless maybe they're visiting friends or something.

Then we had about an hour wait for a train to Fishguard, our next stop. The train was crowded and we couldn't sit together for a while, until there was a lot of passenger reshuffling at Cardiff (unsurprisingly) and we were able to move, and the overhead luggage rack didn't look wide enough for our big hiking packs even when there was enough space available for them lengthwise, so we had to have them at our feet and wedge our legs around them; poor Geoff started out sitting next to a woman who had one bag at her feet and another big one on the floor in front of his seat, so he had to put his big pack on his lap and I'm not sure he could even see around it! But once the train emptied out a bit we were able to be more comfortable. It was about a four-hour ride, with the usual gorgeous scenery of hills patchworked with fields and studded with cattle and sheep, with a few towns and industrial bits for variety, and some impressive tidal flats as we ran along the seaside for a while. Our host at our next B&B had texted (aha! Texting!) to confirm that he'd meet us at the station, and he said to sit on the left side of the train for some beautiful seascapes after Swansea, but I think the tide must have been out.

As we approached our stop, by which time the train had of course emptied out greatly (ours was the second to last on the line), a young woman (twenties?) sitting across from us asked if we were hiking, and we stuck up a conversation. She was coming to Fishguard to do rowing; she's on the Welsh team, she said! (She also said she was Australian; I guess rowing teams recruit from all over, like other sports teams?) We've been to Australia, though nowhere near where she was from, so we chatted about that a little; and she'd been to Canada, though nowhere near where we're from! So I said, "Well, if you're ever in Ontario, feel free to look us up!" -- I meant it mostly as a joke but it ended up serious, and Geoff gave her his card and she said she'd drop him an email with her contact info. I don't think she has, though; I mean, we only chatted for ten minutes. It was fun, though!

Then we arrived at our station, disembarked, and met our host Mike; he and his partner Christine run our B&B here. They have a working smallholding (mostly timber at this point, I think, plus a kitchen garden? Christine also keeps chickens, and we have six of their eggs in our wee fridge), and they rent out one self-contained attached apartment. Their home is a rebuilt and modernized (obviously) twelfth-century farmhouse, and our bit is at the end, what used to be the barn. (In the pictures on their website, we have the far right end: http://ffynnonclun.co.uk/index.htm.) The ground floor is a small room, but big glass double doors let in lots of light during the day, and there are some small windows as well. The floor is stone tiles, there's a loveseat and an armchair, a small dresser and a dropleaf table that we're just using as surfaces to put things on, a small wood stove that we're not using, and off of on one side of the very end is a bathroom with a shower stall with on-demand heater and -- blessed device -- a washing machine! We have done so much laundry. Paralleling the bathroom on the other side is a small but well-equipped kitchen; this is a self-catering B&B, they provide food but we have to cook it and clean up from it. As well as the eggs, the fridge is stocked with bacon, pork and apple sausages, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, a loaf of homemade laverbread, butter, homemade apple-blackberry jam, and milk, and everything that isn't homemade comes from neighbors, pretty much. The milk isn't homogenized, which was fun to discover! I'm not sure I've ever even seen unhomogenized milk before. Apparently it's just not a thing around here. Mike did confirm that it's pasteurized, though, not raw. And the water comes direct from their own springs! (Filtered and UV-treated, delicious, but he did say not to drink it after it's sat for a day, like if you didn't empty your water bottle but just kept drinking the same water, because it's not chlorinated and things will eventually grow in it.)

The walls and ceiling of the room are whitewashed or plastered, and there are two huge tree trunks, bark still on them, embedded in the ceiling and running the length of the room, as ceiling beams. The walls are a good two feet thick. And between the doorways to the kitchen and the bath, a steep ladder leads up to the sleeping loft! There's a thick sturdy rope looped around each step of the ladder for handgrips (they are wide flat steps, not just rungs), and two birch tree trunks, each about as thick as Geoff's wrist, embedded from the loft floor to the (quite low by that time) ceiling, also for hanging on to as you ascend or descend! The booklet of info about the place warns, "No socks on the ladder!" and that is a rule we are holding to. There's a window and a skylight in the loft.

The fuses for the hob and oven, the washing machine, the on-demand shower, and the immersion heater for hot water from a tap each have to be switched on individually before they can be used, and you won't have hot water from the tap for an hour after you switch on the immersion heater (but if you're using the wood stove, that also heats the water tank, so you don't need the electric immersion heater). In some ways this is very rustic! On the other hand, on-demand hot water means an infinite supply, and there's (solar-powered) underfloor heating that can also be switched on (oooooooh so cozy), as well as things we take for granted now, like, obviously, wifi. Mike gave us a quick tour of all the switches and how to use everything. Also there's a washing machine but no dryer, and the weather didn't seem conducive to hanging laundry outside, so he helped us set up a big drying rack in his plastic-sheeted shed, which will be dry and warm, and which holds, as well as the usual collection of shed clutter, several tomato plants and also their big solar batteries.

He and Christine had been incredibly helpful and friendly in our correspondence ahead of time, with suggestions of things to see and do, offers of lifts, and so on, and while obviously this is a business for them, it's not like staying in a hotel or even a large multi-room B&B; it's very personal. So I brought them a gift: a half-liter jug of local maple syrup I picked up at a farmer's market before we left. That's part of the reason my bag has been so heavy; I've been hauling that around for a week! Mike and Christine (who came by as he was showing us around) seemed surprised and delighted to be given it, which is exactly the reaction you want to such a gift! (And Christine actually lived in Toronto for some years, many years ago, so she's familiar with it; years ago we brought some to someone in Australia, and they were like, ".....thanks? What do I do with it?" And then we were trying to explain that it can be used as sweet (e.g. on pancakes) or as savory (e.g. with pork) and that clearly did not compute.)

The B&B is up a long steep hill from town; Mike gave us a ride down to a pub he recommended for dinner, where Geoff had duck and I had fish pie, along with tasty local beers. Then Mike picked us up on his way home from picking up his son, who lives in Cardiff and was arriving for a visit; he'd intended to be on a train, but the train broke down and there was a lot of back and forth on plans, but eventually the train company put him in a taxi to the station and the timing worked out perfectly for Mike to fetch all three of us home.

We had a very cozy night in our loft, warm under a thick comforter and with the lasting warmth of the underfloor heating still radiating upward (stone holds heat!), and Geoff only bonked his head on the low-sloping ceiling once.

And that brings us up to the end of yesterday, but it's eight-thirty pm and I've got to stop writing things up for the evening. I will hope to write up today tomorrow: short version is, today was great.

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There were bugs up on the rafter above Purrcy 's head. I don't think he thought they were prey but they sure were *fascinating*.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is lying on top of a cardboard box, gazing upward with blown pupils and fascinated whiskers. He looks both eager and wary, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is lying on top of a cardboard box, gazing upward with blown pupils and fascinated whiskers. He looks both eager and wary, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.

(So much for that daily posting thing - I've already skipped a few without meaning to. /o\)

Today I rode an e-bike for the first time. Useful for the hills, for sure, but it wasn't as much fun as a regular bike, so I don't see myself doing that often.

Last spring I signed up for a local rent-a-bike service, and ever since then I've been riding bikes a lot again, after a break of something like 15 years. (That was about when my bike got stolen, and I didn't buy a new one because I didn't and still don't have a good place to put it.) I still like biking a lot, though I'm glad I no longer have to in the winter, the way I used to when I was still biking to uni. *g*

I've also been walking a lot again this summer, so overall I've been getting a lot more exercise than I used to! Which, alas, did not turn out to be an unmitigated good. (Turns out that more physical activity makes me hungrier - shock, horror! - but not exactly in proportion. I'd really rather keep fitting into my clothes, and also I don't want not be constantly hungry. So less activity might actually be better. Since we're heading into winter and I don't like going out very much when it's wet and/or cold, I guess I'll see!)

Friday sundries:

= Wow, have I really not posted since Sunday? This week was pretty busy at work and I guess my Elementary rewatch, plus reading a very very long Batfamily time travel story (still in progress *sobs*), and also watching the Mets' downward spiral, left me uninspired.

= I didn't watch them blow a lead last night and lose, because it's so disheartening - there is like no sense that they can hold a lead or come back if they are losing. I'm only planning to watch tonight to see if they get no-hit by Jacob deGrom on his first return to Citi Field as a Texas Ranger. #the existential futility of being a mets fan <- my tag is too long for DW but it is accurate

= I did make it through week one of our family survivor football league - my niece decided on doing a survivor league this year since it is much less work for everyone than a fantasy league. In it, each week, everyone picks one team to win, and either you win and move on, or you lose and are out, though we are doing it with 2 strikes, so you can lose twice before you are out. And you can only pick each team once, so you can't, like, ride the Packers or whoever to victory every week. My strategy is basically to pick whoever is playing the New Orleans Saints, since they are predicted to be the worst team in the league this year. I made it through last week, anyway. *g*

= Usually I have my groceries delivered on Friday afternoon but somehow in my infinite wisdom last night while I was updating the order, I rescheduled it for Sunday afternoon. And then I was in a meeting from 8:30 am - 11 am this morning, so it was too late to move it back to today when I discovered what I'd done. So I left it where it was and will just order pizza for dinner tonight and then have it breakfast and lunch tomorrow as well!

= Anyway, the world is a vampire. Uh, trash fire. But there will be pizza and baseball and probably sleeping in tomorrow. Hopefully it is cool enough to leave the AC off tonight - it was for most of the week, but then last night was not. And since I had to be up an hour earlier than usual (see above re: 8:30 am meeting), I didn't want to spend precious time tossing and turning because I was too hot to sleep.

*

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The last week or so the weather has gotten cool at night, which means open windows and a cuddly Purrcy at my feet every time I lie down or wake up. It's a good life.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is at the foot of the bed and has wiggled onto his back, exposing the soft, fluffy underbelly and dangling his white paws. He looks perfectly cute and loving and not at all like someone who would attack any hand that tried to pet the tummy (IT'S A TRAP)

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is at the foot of the bed and has wiggled onto his back, exposing the soft, fluffy underbelly and dangling his white paws. He looks perfectly cute and loving and not at all like someone who would attack any hand that tried to pet the tummy (IT'S A TRAP)

Whew! Now ensconced in Hay-on-Wye for our pre-planned rest day between finishing the organized hike and spending a week on our own on the coast, first in Fishguard and then in Aberystwyth.

We had booked the cab driver who's been bringing our luggage from place to place (Sharon) to give us a lift partway along our second-to-last hike, from Knighton to Kington. She remarked that a lot of the hikers with our company do that, so she'd gotten curious and looked at their website, and boggled a bit at how strenuous the hikes are! She dropped us off at a beautiful meadow beside a stream, and off we went again.

I don't think I have anything in particular to say about the hike? It was fun and gorgeous, it didn't rain on us until the last half hour or so, we met lots of other hikers coming the other way (and often their dogs), including some our age or older who were backpacking all their luggage with them, wow. They did specify that they're staying in B&Bs, not camping, but even so that's much more than I'd want to carry, not to mention clamber up steep wooded hillsides in storm winds and hail with! Of course, they may be doing much gentler hikes. Anyway.

We walked through innumerable sheep fields, although possibly not any cattle fields that day. There's pork on every menu but we haven't seen any signs of pig farming, except that just after Sharon dropped us off, as we were getting ourselves oriented and booting up the navigation app, a truckload of pigs went along the road; we couldn't see them but we could hear them snorting.

The trail mostly parallels Offa's Dyke; sometimes it runs atop it, but apparently that has really contributed to its erosion. Still, Geoff did have me climb up on a scenic bit so that he could get a photo of what he wanted to call "hot dyke-on-Dyke action." I pointed out that I'm bi, not lesbian, and have never identified as a dyke, and he admitted my point but still wanted the picture. I made him promise not to tell that joke in public, and yet here I am, posting it!

(Today he took a picture of me by the River Wye that he has captioned "Wye Shoshanna? Wye not?" I told him that, considering I named our wifi network "Because Fi," he could have that one for free.)

Food in general has been...fine. Most of the B&Bs offer the basic British full breakfast of an egg, a sausage, some beans and/or black pudding, some bacon, a grilled tomato half, and some toast, plus a self-serve spread of cold cereal and sometimes yogurt or something. There will also be a vegetarian version. (The first hotel we were in, in Bishop's Castle, had, among other things, whole almonds and dried apricots on the cereal-toppings bar, and we sneaked some for trail food. They also had a genuinely varied breakfast menu, and I got an excellent avocado toast with an egg. But it turns out that they spoiled us for the other places we've stayed.) Most of our dinners have been in the same hotel/pub/B&B we've been staying in; some were pre-reserved as part of the hike, presumably either as part of the deal between the hiking company and the hotel or just because the town was so small there weren't a lot of options so the hiking company wanted to ensure we'd be able to eat. (And indeed, most days we staggered in tired enough that we were very glad not to have to figure out what to do about dinner!) Anyway, over the days I've had a perfectly-decent-but-nothing-to-write-home-about pork roast in cider gravy; and a "sizzling chicken stir-fry" that turned out to be basically fajitas without the tortillas, except that the sauce was differently spiced; and something that was called a casserole but was much more like a loose stew. Geoff has had some good fish and chips and a nice pie and some tasty brisket and tagliatelle that was unfortunately mixed in with beans in a disappointing tomato sauce.

Two days ago was the day when, having had a shorter hike than usual because of getting a ride, we arrived at the hotel around 3:30 instead of collapsing through the door at 5:30, and the front entrance let us right into the bar, and on the end of the bar right in front of us as we came in was a glass cake stand displaying gorgeous wedges of Victoria slice. And I had a sudden craving. Geoff always has a pint of beer with dinner, and I often have a half; sometimes I haven't felt up to alcohol at all, especially our jetlagged first night, and once for a change I tried a local cider, but although I liked my initial taste of it it shrank on me (the opposite of "it grew on me") over dinner and by the end I found it nastily sour. But somehow as we arrived that afternoon I absolutely craved a big glass of rich red wine and a wedge of cake. So I had them! A made-that-morning Victoria slice, and a delicious fruity merlot that wouldn't be too tart next to it, and I had a very cozy happy slightly tipsy afternoon! And then that evening we had the best dinner we've had so far, one of the best meals in years. Their menu offered both a minted lamb shank and a hoisin roast duck, and we got them both and split them, and they were both amazing.

We'd told Sharon we'd want a lift partway on the next day as well, since the final hike, as planned, involved 830 meters of cumulative uphill, whereas the shortened option was only 510. But then we looked again at the distance; the full hike is 25 km/15½ miles, which is ridiculously more than we can do in a day, and we belatedly registered that even the shortened version was 17 km/10½ miles, which would still be quite a long day for us. And we checked the weather forecast that evening, and it was for wind and thundershowers all the next day; and when we checked again in the morning it had got even worse. And so we said fuck this, we've paid our dues, and called Sharon first thing in the morning to ask if she could just bring us all the way to Hay-on-Wye along with our luggage, and she said of course. Phew. We had pleasant conversation as we drove along; she said it was nice to actually meet some of the hikers whose bags she's always shifting! Her husband's a taxi driver as well -- I get the feeling that "Knighton Taxi" the company is just the two of them -- and their son drives a timber lorry for his father-in-law's company.

She also confirmed what we'd heard elsewhere: that it had been incredibly dry until this week, and the rain was desperately needed. Farmers have already been feeding their stock winter feed, because there's been nothing for them in the fields. So I don't begrudge the rain (as

rydra_wong quite correctly commented, we are experiencing Authentic British Weather), although it is, er, personally inconvenient. Thank goodness my passport seems to have safely dried out!

Our B&B here, called "Rest for the Tired," is yet another centuries-old building; we're on the top floor/attic in what's basically a little suite, with a door leading to a little entrance hall with our bedroom on one side and our bathroom on another. All the beams and doorways are so low that Geoff has to be careful not to bang his head, and even I have to take the same care when coming down the stairs from our suite. As in most of the places we've stayed, there's just a shower stall, no tub, and this is the second place where the shower has an on-demand water heater with a separate, unmarked power supply that you have to know to look for and turn on before it will produce any water. At the first place Geoff, who had never seen that setup before, thought the shower was broken, but I showed him how it worked, having remembered it from decades-ago visits to the UK and having noticed an otherwise inexplicable pull cord in the bathroom. Here, we had seen a mysteriously unlabeled and rather intimidating red switch high up on the wall of our little hallway, outside the bathroom, and hadn't investigated because it looked, well, mysterious and official, like flicking it might cut off the house's power or something. But this morning I got up to take a shower while Geoff was still in bed, and when the on-demand water heater had no power light and did not respond to its On button, I investigated the mysterious switch with the help of standing on tippy toes and shining a flashlight on it, by which I could see that, whatever it was, it was set to Off. So I figured it was worth a try and switched it to On, whereupon the power light came on on the water heater and I was able to have a shower.

It's a functional but minimal shower stall, a big bathroom with zero counter or storage space anywhere near the pedestal sink but a huge counter and cabinet all the way on the other side of the room, and a toilet that only flushes if you pump the handle juuuust right, and then the plumbing shrieks and moans for a couple of minutes as it refills. And there's a nasty ammonia/cat pee smell in the back corner of the cabinet, under the sloping roof. Also it got quite chilly last evening, and although there are wall radiators in both the bedroom and the bathroom, they were ice cold. (And the bedroom window can't shut fully, because the latch mechanism is old and misaligned, and the wood of the window frame is rotted.) I googled to see if there might be any way to turn the radiators on ourselves, and got helpful web pages saying essentially, "It's easy to adjust these old-fashioned steam radiators! All you need is a pair of pliers, a wire, a needle, a towel and bucket, and access to the boiler!" So I eventually texted our host, an eighty-year-old woman named Mary.

Backtrack a moment: we had of course arrived hours earlier than expected, because we'd skipped the hike. The B&B building was unlocked but unstaffed; Sharon just heaved our bags into the front hallway, as is standard procedure. We poked around inside but didn't see anyone. A note taped to the door said that for B&B info before 4:00, ask at the bookshop next door (actually most of the ground floor of the same building, the B&B just has a narrow front hall and a stairway up); after 4:00, phone Mary at [number]. It was a little after 10, but the bookshop wasn't open, so we phoned Mary, who answered in a very energetic old-woman voice and said her cleaner would be in momentarily to show us our room. We didn't get the cleaner's name but she is also an energetic old woman, and rather deaf, to judge from the loudness of her voice. Mary also arrived as we were settling in and we chatted for a while. I am so glad these days to be able to answer "Where are you from?" with "Canada"! I mentioned that from here we would be catching a bus to Hereford, and she burst out that she was so glad I'd said it properly, "not like the awful way the Americans say it." Now I'm totally paranoid about saying it wrong!

Anyway, I texted Mary about getting some heat instead of phoning because it was almost seven pm at that point and I think of texts as much less intrusive than phone calls, especially at odd hours. But she didn't respond, so I texted her again at eight, and again she didn't respond; but at eight-thirty we found that the radiators had started putting out some heat: not much, but enough that I wasn't almost shivering any more. I texted once more just to say that everything was okay now. And then she phoned me at almost nine, not seeming to have read the texts but opening with "You called Rest for the Tired?" as though she were returning a missed call. I explained and we said goodnight, and then thirty seconds later she phoned back, returning the second text/call, not realizing I was the same person she'd just talked to. I had also initially texted Sharon, the taxi driver, to give her as much notice as possible that we wanted to change plans without interrupting her likely breakfast time, and then phoned when I hadn't heard back and it had reached a more reasonable hour, and she hadn't indicated she'd ever seen it. Maybe people here don't text routinely, the way people back home do?

Hay-on-Wye is famous for its bookstores, of which there are eighty gazillion, or possibly somewhere around 25-30. Mostly they're amazing warrens of used books numbering in the thousands, and if I ever read on paper any more I would probably be in heaven. They're a big reason Geoff wanted to spend an extra day here, but I'm already carrying two books he brought with him that don't fit in his pack, and if he wants to buy anything here he's going to have to have them ship it home. We wandered around town a bit yesterday and poked around several of them, but didn't do more than lightly browse. We also looked through the (much smaller, and new books rather than used) queer bookstore, delightfully named Gay on Wye, where I had fun standing in front of the romance and sf sections going "That author came out of fandom, and so did she, and so did she..."

COVID-related commentary

We're not masking in our hotels/B&Bs, or at meals; we ate our very first dinner outside, but since then outdoor eating hasn't been feasible. And we've kind of let slide masking in shops, even when we could, partly because they often have their doors standing open. We haven't seen a single other person masking, although no one has been weird about it when we were. But being indoors unmasked when it's not necessary has been making me a bit uncomfortable (although we are using an antiviral nasal spray, for whatever good it may do), so I remarked on it to Geoff yesterday and he agreed that we would go back to masking when feasible. And the very next shop we went into, which was Gay on Wye, as we were just leaving after looking around for a while, pondering souvenirs and gifts, spotting fan authors gone pro, etc., I heard the guy at the register telling a customer/friend, "I had COVID last week, and it's left me with walking pneumonia."

And I just. I mean. Brother, for your own sake you should be home in bed, not working, but I don't know if you get sick time, I don't know if you're broke, I don't know if there's anyone else to mind the shop, I don't know your life. But if you had COVID "last week" you are plausibly still contagious with it, plus the pneumonia, and you're not even masking? SURE AM GLAD WE WERE. That definitely reaffirmed to me that we should go back to being more careful, jesus.

We had dinner last night at a pub next door called the Three Tuns, in a building that dates back to the sixteenth century. Geoff had the decent but ultimately somewhat disappointing aforementioned brisket tagliatelle, and I had an excellent pizza with hot salami and nduja and chili oil. We looked for other options for tonight, but everything we found nearby was either lunch-only (most of the restaurants in town), or disproportionately pricy, or basically a sports bar, or in one case had a series of terrifyingly bad Tripadvisor reviews within the last few months, so we're just going back there tonight; it's decent and convenient.

Today was the weekly town market! So after we made the mistake of having breakfast at our B&B -- I mean, it was fine, it was the usual "full English breakfast" except without beans because Mary despises them, it's just that that meant we were full when we went to the market -- we went to browse the market! Lots of fantastic breads and pastries, lots of veg and meat, a cheesemonger with it must have been at least thirty kinds of cheese, lots of pies, lots of jams and preserves, lots of clothes, plus everything from handmade soaps to jewelry to beautifully carved wooden canes. We admired many many things, and then decided to stock ourselves for a picnic lunch on a riverside walk. Geoff got a chicken, gammon, and jalapeno pie, and also a chocolate almond croissant (filled with almond paste and covered with sliced almonds, and then covered on top of that with chocolate and chocolate chips); I got a ciabatta roll and a small wedge of a cheese called Ticklemore that was described (I took a picture of the little display sign) as "mild, delicate cheese with a firm, slightly crumbly texture; citrus, grass, and earthy notes," and also a peach. Then we stopped back at the B&B to fill a water bottle and set out for the riverside.

It was almost strange to be setting out on a gentle stroll, with no time pressure, no expectation of strenuousness, and no intention of being out more than a couple of hours! We sauntered along the wooded riverside path, occasionally seeing the river between the trees (once seeing what may have been a heron) and also seeing some really skillful life-size carvings in tree trunks and stumps: a fox carved sitting on a stump, so realistic that for the first split second we thought it might be real; an owl atop another tall trunk and another owl peering out of a hole; and a bird of prey in mid-flight, depicted as just skimming with its talons the tree trunk it had been carved out of.

Eventually the path opened up into a large meadow, and we took advantage of a sunny interval to sit on a conveniently placed bench, looking out across the meadow and river, and eat. My cheese was delicious; Geoff's croissant was ridiculously over the top but also delicious in its own way. So restful! So civilized! So not being hailed on! Although it did rain, briefly but torrentially, on our way home; we just sheltered under a tree in the lee of a church wall for ten or fifteen minutes until it passed. And then we came back to the B&B to lounge about, and blog, and also we need to repack our bags because, being here for a whole two consecutive nights, we have somehow let them explode all over the room, and tomorrow morning we have to haul our own luggage for the first time in almost a week, onto a bus and then a train to our next stop, the coastal town of Fishguard.

We did have a fun conversation with Mary over breakfast this morning. She checked that we'd eventually been warm enough last night, and told us that when she was little, her family lived in an old castle -- until the roof fell in when she was five, and then they moved to what they called the mini-mansion, what had originally been the dower house or similarly associated building, I forget exactly what she said; it had had only twenty-six rooms(!), but they only used a small part of the house. And it was always cold; there was a fireplace at each end of the house, but unless they had company there was only ever a fire in one of them -- "and no more logs on the fire after nine pm!" her grandmother would bark. The kids slept in a huge old iron bedstead, two at one end and two at the other, heads in different directions, under layers and layers of quilts. The place got much warmer after her family eventually had the front door replaced and the whole front sill rebuilt; the old door had broken and rotted through in holes. And they eventually replaced the old, old window glass and crumbling window frames with new frames and triple-pane insulated windows. But when she was a child...wow. And, I mean, if she's eighty or so (we didn't ask, but she mentioned that her husband is 88), that was in the 1950s -- that's not so long ago!

(It occurs to me now that it did not occur to me then to ask about the plumbing in her childhood home. Now I'm curious!)

She also told more stories of terrible American tourists she's encountered: people who were rude or demanding. She tends to trail off a little and leave things to implication rather than being brutally specific, but she had a great deal to say about the American woman who complained vociferously that there was no refrigerator in her room ("This is a B&B. If you want a refrigerator, go to a hotel") and then couldn't find her boots and accused Mary's husband of stealing them. "Are you sure you didn't pack them in your bag?" asked Mary; "you did arrive here by taxi, not on foot." "Of course I didn't pack them," snapped the woman, "do you think I'm stupid?" "Well, let me help you look," said Mary, upended the woman's bag and dumped everything out, and lo, there were her boots. "I think you owe me an apology," said Mary, but she didn't get one. There were more stories about that woman, too; but apparently her traveling companion was lovely, sent Mary a beautiful little painting she'd done from a photo she'd taken of the B&B (Mary showed it to us), and still sends her Christmas cards! The two women hadn't even known each other before deciding to travel together.

Now I need to wrap this up and do a little packing before we go to dinner!

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When Purrcy is very happy to be next to a human he sits upright on his butt like a little guy, spreads his legs, & prepares to lick his belly & otherwise have a good time. He is extremely vulgar & the envy of all human males, I'm informed.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is sitting up like a human with a kind of dopey expressing on his face. Trust me, I've chosen the camera angle carefully.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is sitting up like a human with a kind of dopey expressing on his face. Trust me, I've chosen the camera angle carefully.

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Dear Annie: I met my husband three years ago, about eight months after he lost his first wife of 20 years. Their marriage was often toxic, and she was very abusive toward him. After she passed, he was ready to move on.

Right away, I knew something wasn't right with my husband. In his mid-50s, he was having short-term memory issues, falling frequently and struggling with his mental health. After seeing his health care provider and enrolling in the Veterans Affairs health care system, we discovered he had suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries during his time in the Army. That diagnosis led to him becoming a 100% service-connected disabled veteran and allowed him to receive the care he needed for a better quality of life.

His family, however, waged a war against me for helping him, accusing me of manipulating and "brainwashing" him. My husband has distanced himself from them, and we're no longer on speaking terms. My husband has a lot of anger toward them as he suffered for decades without their help or support.

His parents, who live in another state, are elderly and in poor health. I fear that if he doesn't reconcile with them before they pass, he will resent me. I love my husband with all my heart, and this has been a hard road. I just want the very best for him, unconditionally. Any advice? -- Wife on the Defensive

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DEAR ABBY: My daughter, "Violet," lives about two hours away. She and her mother (my wife) do not get along. Violet was always a rebellious, independent wild child, as well as the source of a lot of family problems. Violet and I also were estranged until we recently reconciled.

Yesterday, she sent me an email inviting me to lunch to celebrate my birthday. When I told my wife about the invitation, she responded, "Do what you want" in a tone and with a facial expression which said: "Go ahead, but if you do, you'll be sorry."

I have tried to reconcile these two women I love without success. My wife tells me she loves Violet but doesn't like her, although she would like to have a better relationship with her. Violet tells me she blames her mother for her PTSD (her unofficial diagnosis) and wants nothing to do with her.

So do I go to lunch with my daughter and incur the wrath of my wife for what she would consider a betrayal, or do I decline the invitation from my daughter and risk alienating her again? -- IN THE MIDDLE IN NEW JERSEY

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Profile

seperis

Page Summary

the_shoshanna - winding down
kickair8p - Flu Vax Yesterday . . .
aurumcalendula - (no subject)
emrinalexander - (no subject)
minoanmiss in agonyaunt - Ask a Manager: A a colleague is harassing female coworkers...
magid in agonyaunt - [NYTimes Social Q’s] My Husband and I Have No Idea About the Politics of Two New Friends
dine - glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever
musesfool - a 2-run bomb from brett baty
princessofgeeks - 3 things
the_shoshanna - More on the pluses and minuses, and some more pluses
marthawells - Cover Reveal
princessofgeeks - signal boost
dine - copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research
emrinalexander - Body Chemistry Sucks
the_shoshanna - pluses and minuses
minoanmiss in agonyaunt - Ask a Manager: I Didn't Expect My Employee To Take So Much Time Off...
dine - human history becomes more and more a race between education & catastrophe
mecurtin - 2 Purrcys, doomscrolling
escapade_team in escapade_con - In-Person Escapade 36 Panel Suggestions are Open!
emrinalexander - This one is so done
musesfool - looking at the spot
tafadhali in vidding - New Vid: Voice in My Throat (Sense8)
the_shoshanna - Unexpected fun!
serrico - Is it indistinguishable from magic or is it just magic?
the_shoshanna - some pictures
the_shoshanna - (meanwhile at home)
the_shoshanna - Yesterday (the "today" of yesterday's post) was great!
dine - a mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems
kickair8p - Looking (here?) for a tumblr post
musesfool - thunder's rolling down this track
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
mrshamill - (no subject)
the_shoshanna - A long update that doesn't even catch me up to now!
mrshamill - Little victories
dine - men lie, women lie, numbers don't
mecurtin - Bug-eyed Purrcy
trobadora - bikes and stuff
musesfool - despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage
dine - if I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
mecurtin - Purrcy in the bed
the_shoshanna - we've barely even been touristing, we've just been relaxing
emrinalexander - (no subject)
dine - nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity
mecurtin - Self-satisfaction
princessofgeeks - see you on the flip side
princessofgeeks - Return of the Jedi
mrshamill - I don't deserve y'all.
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
princessofgeeks - sad

Quotes

If you don't send me feedback, I will sob uncontrollably for hours on end, until finally, in a fit of depression, I slash my wrists and bleed out on the bathroom floor. My death will be on your heads. Murderers
. -- Unknown, on feedback
BTS List
That's why he goes bad, you know -- all the good people hit him on the head or try to shoot him and constantly mistrust him, while there's this vast cohort of minions saying, We wouldn't hurt you, Lex, and we'll give you power and greatness and oh so much sex...
Wow. That was scary. Lex is like Jesus in the desert.
-- pricklyelf, on why Lex goes bad
LJ
Obi-Wan has a sort of desperate, pathetic patience in this movie. You can just see it in his eyes: "My padawan is a psychopath, and no one will believe me; I'm barely keeping him under control and expect to wake up any night now to find him standing over my bed with a knife!"
-- Teague, reviewing "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones"
LJ
Beth: god, why do i have so many beads?
Jenn: Because you are an addict.
Jenn: There are twelve step programs for this.
Beth: i dunno they'd work, might have to go straight for the electroshock.
Jenn: I'm not sure that helps with bead addiction.
Beth: i was thinking more to demagnitize my credit card.
-- hwmitzy and seperis, on bead addiction
AIM, 12/24/2003
I could rape a goat and it will DIE PRETTIER than they write.
-- anonymous, on terrible writing
AIM, 2/17/2004
In medical billing there is a diagnosis code for someone who commits suicide by sea anenemoe.
-- silverkyst, on wtf
AIM, 3/25/2004
Anonymous: sorry. i just wanted to tell you how much i liked you. i'd like to take this to a higher level if you're willing
Eleveninches: By higher level I hope you mean email.
-- eleveninches and anonymous, on things that are disturbing
LJ, 4/2/2004
silverkyst: I need to not be taking molecular genetics.
silverkyst: though, as a sidenote, I did learn how to eviscerate a fruit fly larvae by pulling it's mouth out by it's mouthparts today.
silverkyst: I'm just nowhere near competent in the subject material to be taking it.
Jenn: I'd like to thank you for that image.
-- silverkyst and seperis, on more wtf
AIM, 1/25/2005
You know, if obi-wan had just disciplined the boy *properly* we wouldn't be having these problems. Can't you just see yoda? "Take him in hand, you must. The true Force, you must show him."
-- Issaro, on spanking Anakin in his formative years
LJ, 3/15/2005
Aside from the fact that one person should never go near another with a penis, a bottle of body wash, and a hopeful expression...
-- Summerfling, on shower sex
LJ, 7/22/2005
It's weird, after you get used to the affection you get from a rabbit, it's like any other BDSM relationship. Only without the sex and hot chicks in leather corsets wielding floggers. You'll grow to like it.
-- revelininsanity, on my relationship with my rabbit
LJ, 2/7/2006
Smudged upon the near horizon, lapine shadows in the mist. Like a doomsday vision from Watership Down, the bunny intervention approaches.
-- cpt_untouchable, on my addition of The Fourth Bunny
LJ, 4/13/2006
Rule 3. Chemistry is kind of like bondage. Some people like it, some people like reading about or watching other people doing it, and a large number of people's reaction to actually doing the serious stuff is to recoil in horror.
-- deadlychameleon, on class
LJ, 9/1/2007
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Fan Fiction is John Cusack standing outside your house with a boombox.
-- JRDSkinner, on fanfiction
Twitter
I will unashamedly and unapologetically celebrate the joy and the warmth and the creativity of a community of people sharing something positive and beautiful and connective and if you don’t like it you are most welcome to very fuck off.
-- Michael Sheen, on Good Omens fanfic
Twitter, 6/19/2019
Adding for Mastodon.
-- Jenn, traceback
Fosstodon, 11/6/2022

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