seperis | Educationally Speaking

Today was our last breakfast in this hotel's pretty restaurant area, sniff.

i have been making the most of it.

They offer six cooked breakfast options in addition to the great spread of cold meats and cheeses, bread and pastry, fruit and yogurt and cereal and juice; but after trying a couple different ones I decided that I didn't like any others more than I liked the one that comprised two poached eggs, half a sliced avocado, and some of the best smoked salmon I've ever had, so I've just been getting that one every morning. Also a croissant. Today I asked for only one egg, just so I'd have room for a second croissant. Plus several cups of excellent coffee.

(Since we're leaving at oh-fuck-o'clock tomorrow morning, they have packed up "continental" breakfasts for us to take away: each of us has an apple, some kind of wrapped sandwich that I didn't investigate, a yogurt, and a croissant. The croissants will not be nearly as good a day later after spending the night in our room mini fridge, but I will appreciate mine nonetheless.)

Then, after a little dithering, we went back to Petit Pôt Bay. Geoff had been interested in either or both of a walking tour of St Peter Port, or a tour of Sausmarez Manor; but the forecast was for today to be even hotter than yesterday, and it's a bank holiday so the buses are running a limited Sunday schedule, and in the end the opportunity to not slog long distances won out.

We headed down the hill again at about 10:15, and the tide was out when we arrived, making it a completely different beach! A huge swath of smooth sand was exposed, studded with some big rocks, and lots of people: families mostly, some kayakers, one guy with a fishing pole but I kept forgetting to keep an eye on him so I don't know where he set up or what he was fishing for.

This feels like our last full day of vacation, even though it's not; tomorrow we leave at oh-fuck-o'clock as previously established to return to St Helier in Jersey, and meet

trepkos and her partner for lunch, but other than that we have no plans for the day. And then Wednesday we leave not quiiiite as early to start on our journey home: walk to St Helier bus terminal, bus to airport, fly to Heathrow where we have a five-hour layover 😩, then a flight to Toronto, a night in an airport hotel, and a train home the next morning. But, conceptually, all that feels like one thing to me: Going Home. First thing tomorrow we start Going Home, except that we have a break in it early on to socialize with

trepkos and partner. Before I began writing this blog entry, I packed my whole bag, except for my toiletry kit and other overnight necessities, and one packing cube hopefully contains everything I'll need (barring toiletries) between tomorrow morning and getting home, so if I've planned it right I won't need to delve into my pack beyond that at all.

Anyway, since this feels like our last day and I can fit all my clothes for the remaining days in one packing cube, when I went wading this time I didn't care if my shorts got wet: let them be salt-crusted! They're going straight into the laundry bag until we get home! (As Geoff's photos reveal, I wore yesterday's clothes to go wading again today, anyway. No sense getting fresh clothes sweaty and salty; I need some clean ones for Going Home, and I didn't pack expecting multiple 30-degree days so I'm protecting the clean hot-weather clothes I have.) So Geoff settled himself and our daypacks and my boots and socks on a comfy rock a little way up from the waterline, and I had a wonderful time just wading back and forth from one side of the beach to the other. Geoff is not a fan of sunbathing or ocean-frolicking, but he is a fan of watching the waves, and watching little kids have fun ~~and watching me have fun~~, and there was a good breeze, so it wasn't too hot for him.

The water was (unsurprisingly) still cold, and this time, unlike yesterday, I wasn't overheated when I first waded in, so brrrr; I would wade from where Geoff was sitting to the other side of the beach, first at shin-depth and then at knee- and thigh-depth as I got used to it, but by the time I reached the other side I would be very happy to slosh out of the surf onto the sand and walk back dry to let my feet warm up before doing it again. Except that the tide was coming in fast, so every time I made the transit it was a new (and smaller) beach! And Geoff kept having to shift himself up the beach every ten or fifteen minutes. On my first venture out, I was fascinated by a massive rock whose seaward surface was 75% barnacles, 20% limpets, and 4% snails, with only 1% of actual rock showing, and I brought my phone out to get a picture of it; two or three transits later it was almost completely under water.

Not only was the tide coming in fast, the waves got bigger as the water level rose. I was mostly wading a little over my knees, but I got spanked by waves several times. Little kids were shrieking and jumping (or jumping into) the waves; one family industriously built three well-buttressed sandcastles, with their seaward walls reinforced with seaweed, only to see each of them brought down and dissolved in turn. The far side of the beach had much more seaweed than the one Geoff and I initially settled at (we had to move to the other side once the tide completely ate that side of the beach); the shallow water there was thick with tangled fronds of dark green and light green and red, with occasional bits of white, and the kids were bringing it up the beach by the armload.

I found a snail being washed back and forth in the water left behind as a wave retreated; I picked it up and put it on a wet rock, and watched as it put its foot out to pull itself into a more comfortable position. A little girl ran past me to show her parents the limpet she had managed to dislodge, and was appropriately praised and told to put it back. I had been tempted to try to knock one loose myself, as our seabed-walk guide had done, so as to get a good look at the animal inside the shell, but I didn't. Some people were genuinely swimming, not just wading, and some of them weren't even in wetsuits!

But after about an hour and a half it was getting noticeably hotter even with the breeze, and I had been back and forth and up and down the beach multiple times and was beginning to feel guilty about keeping Geoff just sitting there (not that he was complaining), and I'd pretty much seen what there was to see, so Geoff got another ice cream cone, and we grabbed a sandwich for later and trudged back up the hill to the hotel. It was not as difficult a slog as it was yesterday! Showered off the sweat and salt and sunscreen, and we've spent the afternoon just lounging around the room, reading and blogging (and, for Geoff, napping).

We're going back to the local pub for one last dinner tonight, and I've already set a phone alarm for five am.

Dear Prudence,

My daughter, “Sarah,” is 28. She is independent and lives about six hours away with a roommate and her dog. She tells me she’s generally happy, though sometimes a bit lonely, and tends to stay home when she’s not working.

I’m concerned about her health and overall well-being. Sarah is significantly overweight, and although she says she’s happy as she is, I worry that her weight may be affecting important areas of her life—her health, her career, and her relationships. She struggles with depression and takes antidepressants, but has resisted therapy. She also has some medical issues that may be related to her weight, though I no longer have full visibility into her health.

She is a beautiful person, yet she doesn’t date. It’s not for lack of interest. She has shared that she would like a relationship, but isn’t being asked out. Professionally, she has been in her field for six years without advancement and is currently working part-time, even though full-time roles are available. I can’t help but wonder whether bias against heavier individuals may be playing a role. I’ve always tried to model healthy habits. I’ve had my own health struggles in recent years and gained weight, but I’ve since lost 30 pounds through exercise and medication, which has significantly improved both my health and self-confidence. I’ve gently suggested she explore similar options, but she’s not interested.

I understand that she is an adult and that ultimately these decisions are hers. Still, it’s very hard to watch from the sidelines as I worry about her long-term health and happiness. Each time I visit, she seems to have gained more weight, and I’m afraid of the path this could lead her down. I don’t want to damage our relationship by pushing too hard, but I also don’t want to ignore something that feels so serious. Is there any constructive way I can support her, or is stepping back truly the best I can do?

—A Concerned Mother

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Frequently when we reschedule something because of a bad weather forecast, the weather turns out to not be that bad after all, but this weekend, it was the smart move. It seems to have finally stopped raining for bit after it rained heavily for most of yesterday and all of today. It's been a real chilly and kind of gray spring, tbh, those few days of high 80s/low 90s notwithstanding.

Anyway, I've taken the chance to try out some recipes - yesterday, I made chicken meatballs with garlic butter orzo, which is good and I have some leftover, but I would say that the meatballs are sort of unnecessary? And the garlic butter needs a little more seasoning imo - some rosemary and oregano and basil would not go amiss - but the orzo in garlic butter is good stuff.

I also made Ina Garten's shortbread, though I kept the teaspoon of almond extract from the pecan shortbread and covered them with chocolate sprinkles - I made the dough yesterday and then baked them off this morning. 20 minutes was probably a minute or 2 too long in the oven, but they still taste good.

I also baked a loaf of bread, on which I might make French bread pizza tomorrow. We'll see. I might also bake some kind of lemon cake, since I have a bunch of lemons, but maybe not. Again, I'll see how I feel. But for dinner tonight, I made these ricotta and breadcrumb balls. Which again, I seasoned to my own taste rather than following the instructions. They're pretty good if you like ricotta.

I think that's one of the most important things you can do when you learn to cook - learn to make things taste the way you like them. I save a ton of recipes and have a bunch of cookbooks, but mainly I need them for measurements and techniques, not flavorings. I mean, don't get me wrong, sometimes they will come up with a combination that would never have occurred to me which is delicious! But a lot of the time, I'm going, I'll swap in X for Y and I will like it better. If there are too many of these in one recipe, then it's not really that recipe (not that I would comment to say so!), but the technique might be useful just the same.

*

Still reading the 520 Day collection, but I'm also writing!

Among other things (which I can't talk about because exchanges), I'm currently working on an original thing, and I'm having trouble with a character that won't quite come together. I know rather a lot about them, but I don't have a real feel for them as a character yet.

Now, part of the reason is no doubt that I haven't fully settled on a name - characters never entirely come together for me until I've found the "right" name for them - but maybe some outside inspiration would help, too. Sometimes it does help to think about similar characters/archetypes, and where the differences lie!

To that end: if you know any good mentor characters who remain in the story after their "student" surpassed them or no longer needs them, please tell me about them! I'd really appreciate it. ♥

Title: My Redemption
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery & Star Trek: Section 31
Music: My Redemption by Halestorm
Summary: 'don't need saving to save myself/ don't need forgiveness to bless my guilt'
Notes: Premiered at

wiscon_vidparty 2026!
Warnings: quick cuts, flashing lights, blood, violence

AO3 | bsky | DW | tumblr | YouTube

Hello fellow kids!

It’s panel nomination time! Do you have a panel idea bubbling in your brain but aren't quite sure how to shape it? Or maybe you just love bouncing ideas off other folks? Our panel suggestion parties are happening every few weeks to help shape your ideas into panels. Or you can just come hang out with your fellow Escapaders!

Panel Suggestion Party Dates

Saphire_Dance hosts Saturday May 30th from 1pm-3pm PST

fashes hosts Saturday June 13th from 5pm-7pm PST

sprocket hosts Saturday July 11th from 6pm-8pm PST

aaronantium hosts June 27th from 10am-12pm PST

Panel nominations close on Sunday June 28th at 11:59pm PST

Submit your panel suggestions here:

https://forms.gle/Pb7RDU7gmbkCEtKk6

Escapade Online is August 7th-9th.

https://escapadecon.net/register/escapade-online-36-5-registration/

-Con Com

https://escapadecon.net/escapade-36-5-panel-suggestion-party-dates/

Did you know Guernsey had a motorcycle club? Because we didn't

As previously indicated, we went down to the local pub for dinner again (and I did indeed have delicious fish and chips and a pint of that yummy cider). We sat outside at one of the tables in the pleasant back garden, along with a scattering of other couples and a family or two. The driveway and parking area backed onto the seating area, and after a few minutes we heard the rumble of motorcycle engines, and three very heavily tattooed men in club colors pulled up, parked their bikes, came into the outside seating area, and asked the server who came to meet them for a table for seven; two more club members and two women not in club colors joined them shortly afterward. They were seated some distance away from us, which we were glad of because several of them immediately started smoking but were sorry about because we would have loved to eavesdrop on their conversation! I'm pretty sure the first three who arrived were all in different colors, but I could only read two: Full-Boar (Guernsey) and Devil's Disciples (England).

like, genuinely hot, 30C/86F and blazingly sunny.

Phew.

We went back to our room after breakfast and zonked out for a while (Geoff has a practically unlimited capacity for napping), and then decided to walk due south from here about fifteen minutes to Petit Bôt Bay, which we'd been told was very pretty and also had a snack kiosk, and is also connected to the coastal trail network. It's basically midway between the easternmost point we ended at on our giant hike last Sunday (https://the-shoshanna.dreamwidth.org/907700.html) and the westernmost point we started at last Wednesday (https://the-shoshanna.dreamwidth.org/908256.html), so we figured we'd get there and then decide if we wanted to turn right (west) or left (east).

It was a nice fifteen-minute walk down the hill to the bay, except for the awareness that we would have to climb back up the slope. Most of it was on one of the old roads on which vehicles are no longer allowed, so they're wider than footpaths but still quiet, and we wound through the usual green banks. Sometimes you can tell that the mossy ferny small-tree-y banks you're walking between are old, overgrown stone walls that have almost disappeared under the long accumulation of greenery and soil, and often you can't. We also passed an old stone watering trough, which water was still running through and past, in a small trickling stream that paralleled us all the way to the top of the bay, where we saw yet another round tower that was built to defend against the French in the late 1780s, and the ruins of what had been a water wheel about two hundred years ago. Also, remember the Renoir Path we found ourselves on a few days ago? At the site of the old water wheel was a similar thing for JMW Turner, with a reproduction of a sketch he'd done of the site when the water wheel and a hotel were still standing.

We found ourselves walking the last few yards down to the kiosk alongside a man who had just parked his car on the side of the access road (where several others were also parked) and who was walking down to meet a friend who was setting up a couple of kayaks on the bank above the beach, so we chatted with him for a minute. He pointed out where the coastal trail going west left the beach access road, and we were like "we KNOW": it visibly began with, yes, a very long and very steep stairway climbing up the cliffside. Then Geoff and I went on to enjoy the view from the top of the retaining wall above the beach; the bay is a narrow V between seaside cliffs, and although the beach was largely rocky (perhaps there's more sandy beach revealed at lower tide), there were some swimmers, and some families with kids on the sandy part, and a number of other boaters and stand-up paddleboarders in the water. There was also a bin of children's beach toys available to be borrowed, played with, and returned: an absolutely lovely amenity that we've seen on beaches both here and in Jersey.

We debated a bit about which direction to go and finally decided on west, despite the steep climb. For one thing, the western trail had another kiosk and public toilets marked on it, about halfway to the point we'd reached coming the other way, and if we got that far we'd also be near a bus route where we might be able to catch a ride home, whereas if we went east there were fewer amenities and it would definitely be shank's mare all the way. (None of this turned out to be relevant, however.) Then we went back up the bank toward the trail, past where the kayak guy and his friend were still setting up. We talked briefly about how very hot it was, and he agreed that it was so hot that he might accidentally fall out of his kayak a couple of times, sploosh, oops! We told him we were going to attempt that grueling stairway westward; "tell our families we died proudly," I begged.

In the end, though, we only walked for a little over an hour. It was very VERY up and down, made more so by our twice getting on dead-end spur trails that looked they would go along the cliffs but that ended up going steeply down to dead-end at a viewpoint or an old military emplacement, and then we had to struggle uphill again before we could continue on. And the heat made the climbing far more exhausting than it had been on other days. Plus Geoff has had real problems with heat in the past and I really didn't want him overheating, so we were resting frequently, and drinking a lot of water; we had two full water bottles and in just the time we were out we finished one. After we struggled to the top of yet another grueling climb, I finally said that I was willing to keep walking as long as the trail was more or less level, but I wasn't willing to do another steep ascent, or for that matter another steep descent, given that we'd have to get back up it on our return. The trail did politely remain only moderately tilted for a while, so we kept on, and we were rewarded by encountering a family of pheasants in the path! A beautifully colored male who hurried away into the underbrush ahead of the rest of the family, a drab female who herded four or five chicks with her into the shelter of the underbrush, and then two more chicks who had frozen in place instead of following her, and then as we came closer broke from their hiding places to scramble frantically after the rest. That was fun!

A little after that, though, the trail began tilting precipitously downward, and we called it and turned around. Slogged slowly back to the beach -- oh god the stairs, so many many stairs -- and shared a pizza and a pint of beer from the kiosk; the only beer they had was one that Geoff likes a lot but I don't, really, and yet I was absolutely loving my deep long cold swigs of it after spending an hour on those trails, in that heat. Happily, they had umbrellas shading the picnic tables in front, so we could sit in the shade, and there was a glorious breeze. (Oddly, there hadn't been one on the cliffs, even when we were in the open -- and the blazing sun -- rather than among trees and high green banks.)

The elderly man who brought us our pizza asked where we were from, and when we said "Canada" he said laughingly that he'd learned not to ask tourists, "Are you Americans?" because the Canadians would get so insulted. We laughingly agreed, and had a bit of the standard "Isn't he awful" conversation. "I bet you get some Americans claiming to be Canadian," I added, straight-faced.

Once we were finished, Geoff went back to the kiosk to throw out the trash and get himself an ice cream cone, while I went down onto the beach proper, picked my way across most of the stony part to a big rock sunk into the sand but high and wide enough to be a comfortable seat, and took my boots and socks off to go wading! (I'd been in shorts all day. Did I mention it was 30 degrees?)

The water was colder than I expected -- although, I mean, it's the north Atlantic, I suppose I should have expected that! But it was incredibly refreshing on my hot feet, and the waves weren't high or powerful but when they rushed out again they sank my feet deep into the sand, and then on their return sometimes wrapped seaweed around my ankles. Near me were children playing with buckets of sand and water, and building a sandcastle with parents; one very small girl whose teeth were chattering even in the sun, from the water temperature; a boy lying prone on a floatie in the water and wielding a stick with a net on the end, paddling to reach and scoop up the colored plastic balls his mom(?) tossed from behind him to bob on the water in front of him; a man and woman who waded into the chilly water to swim quite far out, which is less impressive when I add that they were both in wetsuits; and some adults just lying, soaking up the sun. I'd been making noise earlier about going swimming tomorrow; beaches and hot sun and sand and swimming are not at all Geoff's thing, but when we were in Hawaii years ago I insisted on getting a chance to, as I put it, frolic in the god damn surf. There wasn't any surf here (we did see quite a number of surfers on the north coast on Thursday, the day I skipped blogging about), but the principle still holds! But I think the wading I did today may have satisfied my need. To be honest, right now I don't ever want to trudge up a hill again, even one like the one from the beach that would have seemed like nothing a few days ago. It's hot, I'm tired, it's almost the end of our vacation, we are not as young as we used to be. (How did that happen. Who let that happen.)

But I dried my feet and brushed off as much sand as I could and put my socks and boots back on and we did indeed trudge back up the hill to the hotel, where we had to collapse a bit before either of us even had the energy to shower. (Also Geoff was still sweating even after coming in, and there's no point showering when he's sweating at the same time! It takes him a long time to cool down sometimes.) Anyway, we crashed out and eventually showered and he napped again and we both blogged the day. He's posted some excellent pictures! https://geoff-hart.com/fiction/Channel-Islands-2026/may24.html (See the line going diagonally up to the left from the tower? That's the trail we took. At a slant like this: \ )

And now back to the pub down the road for dinner. I haven't yet had fish and chips on this trip, and I plan on correcting that tonight. Also another pint of that tasty English cider, and probably about a gallon of cold water, we hardly did anything, it feels like, and yet it has been a DAY.

Sarah Rees Brennan, All Hail Chaos: Volume two: ( more isekai )

Cameron Reed, What We Are Seeking: ( stunning diversity )

Daryl Gregory, The Porcelain Sisters: ( creepy doll )

Bob Proehl, The Nobody People: ( X-Men vols. 1 & 2 )

Meg Elison, Foundling Fathers: ( cloned Founders )

Kemi Ashing-Giwa, The Splinter in the Sky: ( f/f sf )

Matt Dinniman, A Parade of Horribles:( the beatings will continue until morale improves )

Martha Wells, Platform Decay: ( I love you, narrator Kevin R Free )

Robert Jackson Bennett, A Trade of Blood: ( Sherlock Holmes with leviathans )

Adrian Tchaikovsky,( Tyrant Philosophers and Dogs of War books )

T. Kingfisher, Wolf Worm: ( worms are big )

Charles Soule & Ryan Brown, Eight Billion Genies:( careful what you wish for )

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Omer Bartov, Israel: What Went Wrong?:( internal/external causes )

Jef I. Richards, A History of Advertising: The First 300,000 Years: ( factoids )

Hal Brands, The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century: ( geography and politics )

Paisley Rekdal, Appropriate: A Provocation:( what is appropriation? )

Mel Stanfill, Professor Superstar: Fandom and Anti-Fandom of Academia: ( fans and anti-fans of academia )

Roger Kreuz, Strikingly Similar: Plagiarism and Appropriation from Chaucer to Chatbots:( plagiarism and some related stuff )

Farah Mendelsohn, Considering the Female Man: Or, as the bear swore: ( lit crit )

Joshua Clark Davis, Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back: ( how to destroy a movement with law )

but we did sort of succeed at taking it easy?

Today we took a bus to a local weekly market on the grounds of Sausmarez Manor, a stately home that has been in the same family since, like, the twelfth century. Well, the estate has; of course there have been several houses on the site, and the family is not currently living in the height of twelfth-century architecture. (Although the then-seigneur's refusal to have the house wired for electricity saved it from being commandeered by the occupying Nazis, who wanted mod cons.) I had high hopes for the market, since I love farmers markets, but it turned out not to be one. There was one person selling food (sausage rolls and similar), a number of people selling handmade crafts, and several people selling mass-produced tat. I was disappointed. But it was still interesting to poke about the property! There's a sculpture garden with an enormous scorpion that I found quite disturbing (I do not like bugs, especially giant ones) and a cobra that I didn't mind but that Geoff found disturbing, and a quite wonderful lioness depicted lolling atop a stone wall, among others. And a small antiques sale was going on, and a sale of Oriental rugs: nothing that held our interest for long, but all together enough to keep us interested for an hour or so. I enjoyed paging through a pamphlet of "107 Things to See in Guernsey" from 1902, and Geoff bought a collection of some British comic strip he had fond memories of.

Then we walked ten minutes up the road to see La Gran'Mère de Chimquiere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Gran%2527_M%C3%A8re_de_Chimquiere), a stone female figure that was originally carved about four thousand years ago, recarved about two thousand years ago, broken in half by a cranky Christian authority about two hundred years ago and promptly put back together at the insistence of the local population, and that now stands at the entrance to the driveway of a local parish church. History is just lying around everywhere! In itself it's not that much to look at, but contemplating it and the thousands of years of changing worship and veneration was quite moving.

Then we walked forty minutes back to the hotel, along quiet pretty residential back roads much more pleasant than the main drag. At one point a woman in a car pulled up next to us to ask where we were from and generally chat, and in the course of conversation told us that Paul Revere, of American Revolutionary War fame, had roots in Guernsey. (Wikipedia has no mention of this, fwiw.) I said something like "wow, I never knew that" and she said something like "well, it's family history," and I had the feeling that she meant less that she herself was related to him than that all Guernseyites are somehow related? But idk.

I have, by the way, been 100% describing myself as Canadian to everyone we meet. I admit to US roots only in particular circumstances and after some preliminary conversation, and when I do the conversation almost invariably turns to spend some time on "Isn't he awful."

Once back at the hotel, Geoff zonked out for two hours while I faffed about on the internet, and then we walked half an hour north along quiet pretty residential and agricultural back roads to a cidery where we had booked a tour (https://www.rocquettecider.com/). According to the tour guide, although not quite in these words, a super-rich family bought the whole valley in the 1990s, and a friend of theirs who had experience running a cidery in England told them, you know, the microclimate of this valley is excellent for growing cider apples, and it turned out that there had actually been a cidery there until it folded just after WW2, so they bought a few thousand apple trees and went into business. You can do that kind of thing on a whim when you're that rich, I guess; and it does seem to be a good business. It was an interesting tour, not deep but fun, and ended with free half-pints of their cider (which, unfortunately, was the local one I hadn't much liked a few days before; I still didn't like it and Geoff finished mine), plus gin and vodka liqueurs (?? no idea exactly what they were but the vodka one was deep red [?!] and very tasty) and their apple brandy, which was powerfully delicious). Also cheese and crackers and tasty house-made chutney so we didn't all die, drinking that much alcohol on empty stomachs on a very hot and sunny day.

We walked -- or staggered -- back to the hotel just in time for another tapas dinner, which they do here every Saturday. This one was perhaps even more delicious than last week's, and we were seated with an English couple from Reading, whom we very much enjoyed talking with; everybody else had finished and left by the time we said goodnight.

For us this counted as a quiet restful day: only about 100 minutes of walking, and all of it more or less level and on pavement! No idea what we'll do tomorrow, but I am babying a blister, so probably another quiet day?

I put up my hummingbird feeder today and they were visiting it within a few hours!

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Happy belated 520 Day, everyone!

Our annual Guardian Reverse Exchange revealed two days ago, and our collection is full of gorgeous works! We have a whole bounty of drama and novel works, fanfic, fanart, podfic and vids this year. So happy-making! :D

My own exchange experience this year is all Ya Qing-centric, yay! I received a delightful Ya Qing vid from

amedia:

These Boots [General]
Characters/Relationships: Ya Qing & Zhu Jiu, Ya Qing & Wang Xiangyang, Ya Qing & Ye Zun, Ya Qing & Ying Chun
Content Tags: Celebrating BAMF!Ya Qing, 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange 2026, Prompt Fill, Gift vid, Fanvids, Short vid (just over a minute)

Summary: Ya Qing is SO DONE with all her co-conspirators.

And I wrote a Ya Qing/Zhu Hong fic myself, for

plingo_kat:

Unwritten (3,017 words) [Teen]
Relationship: Ya Qing/Zhu Hong
Characters: Ya Qing, Zhu Hong, Ying Chun, Snake Tribe's Fourth Uncle
Content Tags: Post-Canon, Post-Fix-It, Guardian Treaty, Yashou Worldbuilding, Yashou History, Fu You's Legacy, High Chief Zhu Hong, Pre-ship, First Kiss

Summary: It's foolish to have a quarrel with a dead woman, but Ya Qing does. She's had it for years, ever since she began to realise how much the Guardian Treaty and Yashou neutrality were holding her people back. Fu You's legacy looms large among all the Yashou tribes, and everything Ya Qing did was to try and escape it.

I am skipping over yesterday and will hope to describe it later; today I am blogging about today, in an effort to not fall too far behind.

We left pretty early this morning, since we had to be at the ferry dock 45 minutes early, and after an incident yesterday (a minor car accident -- the first we've seen, which is frankly a little surprising) delayed our bus, we wanted to leave plenty of time in case of similar difficulties. We still miiiight have had time to grab some breakfast, but no way was I eating anything other than an antinausea med before getting on a ferry again, and Geoff decided he'd rather wait and get something in Sark.

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and gently breezy and even a little too hot. The ferry over to Sark was much smaller than the one from Jersey to here, and we had seats outside on the upper deck with great views, and the sea was calm; I doubt I even needed the pill but I'm not sorry I took it just in case. We saw many jagged rocks gouging up from the water, some of them extra jagged because of all the cormorants on them; and the island of Herm as we passed it (year-round population: about 60; tourists per year: about 100,000); and also the island of Brecqhou, right next to Sark, which is privately owned by the surviving billionaire Barclay brother. The glimpse I got of their castle-mansion looked exactly like you'd expect a ~~supervillain's~~ billionaire's castle-mansion on a private island to look like.

Our plan was basically to walk around the island, and also have a meal or two. The first walk was just up the loooong steeeeeep hill from the ferry dock to the center of the village (and the Visitor Information Centre). We'd more or less assumed we'd ride one of the wagons pulled by tractors (which are the only motor vehicles allowed on the island) that are made available, and that haul overnight visitors' luggage up for delivery to their hotels, but the crowd preceding us off the boat had filled them by the time we walked from the disembarkation point to their parking and loading area, and we didn't want to wait for them to deliver the first load of tourists and come back for more. Also none of the info we'd seen had told us there was a charge for the ride, but then we saw a fee list posted. So we said screw it, it won't be the hardest walk we've done this week, and headed for the footpath up the hill along with a number of other intrepid walkers.

That may have been the nicest walk we did all day, sadly. It was lovely, wooded and shady, steep at times but never grueling, with no particular views to admire but just a green and pleasant passage, very quiet unless a tractor-bus was chugging past us on the road that was paralleling us off to the side, behind a line of trees.

We got to the top, walked through shops and restaurants to the Visitors' Centre and confirmed that they had no maps better than the freebie the ferry company had given us when we checked in, and went to a pub for some food. Well, they weren't going to start serving food until noon, and it was 11:45, so we killed time in an excellent exhibit on life under the Occupation in the hall next door. It included a whole history of the war as Sark experienced it, including awful details about the level of hunger. (Sibyl Hathaway, the Dame of Sark, the feudal lord who ran the island from 1927 when her father died and she inherited the title until she died in 1974, went from what the narration happily described as "a healthy weight of 10 stone" to 7 stone by the end of the war: 140 pounds to 98. The feudal system of government wasn't changed until 2008, and whoever wrote the story of the Occupation clearly adored Dame Hathaway.) There were also stories of a group of local divers and others who worked for the Germans under the threat of danger to their families and communities but who slowed and sabotaged the work as much as they dared; and accounts from someone who was evacuated as a child just before the Germans arrived and from someone who stayed; and many more stories, including the code words that Dame Hathaway and her husband used in letters, to pass on news of the war, after he was deported to a German prison camp.

Anyway, once the pub was open for food, we got some excellent coffee, and Geoff got a quite tasty plate of duck tagliatelle. I, still on my quest to eat my own weight in seafood, got a crab sandwich that the menu board said was made with local foraged seaweed -- how could I turn it down? I'd had a crab sandwich at a beachside kiosk yesterday, which was...acceptable: it was on supermarket sandwich bread, thickly buttered, and wasn't all that good, really. This one was better, on a crusty roll that was still buttered but at least only lightly, and the chopped seaweed that was mixed into it didn't add a noticeable flavor but maybe it was a bit more...umami? The crab itself did taste better than yesterday's sandwich. But on the whole I think I'll give up on crab sandwiches. Geoff's pasta was better.

After lunch, we set out to walk to Little Sark, a chunk of land that hangs like a teardrop of the south end of Sark proper, connected by a high and narrow land bridge called La Coupée. Until 1902, when the first safety railing was installed, Little Sark children on their way to school would crawl across it on their hands and knees to avoid being blown off. Now it has sturdy railings on both sides, and also a smooth and somewhat leveled walkway, paved down each side but left as dirt in the middle so that horses could get a better footing, that was constructed by German prisoners of war in 1945-46. It was a very dramatic crossing; I hope Geoff's pictures came out!

But the walk to La Coupée wasn't anything special, and on the other side the dry dirt roadway was wide and unshaded and between banks so there were almost no views. We had been hoping to get to a Neolithic dolmen at the far end of Little Sark, but we didn't really have time before we had to report to the return ferry, and the walking wasn't pleasant, so we gave up and turned around. Wandered back through town, got Geoff an ice cream, and took the nice footpath down the hill again. Since we had some time, we went from the ferry harbor through a short tunnel bored right through the rock to the boating harbor next to it, which is one of the smallest working harbors in the world. It's almost entirely enclosed by a breakwater, making it also a nice place to swim; several people were in the water, and so was a very happy dog. Then we went back and stood on the ferry dock waiting for the ferry. I'm pretty sure I saw a jellyfish in the water; it was a foot or so below the surface, which was several yards below me, and it wasn't very big, so it's hard to be sure; but it was definitely moving differently from the water around it, and it definitely seemed to be blooming and contracting, blooming and contracting, as a jellyfish would. So I'm going to say I saw a jellyfish! That was exciting; I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild before, unless you count the Portuguese man o' war that stung me when I was a child.

I took another pill before the return ferry ride, and although I hadn't felt that the first one affected me at all, I definitely got hit by "may cause drowsiness" on the way home! I actually fell asleep sitting up (we had great seats on the outside upper deck again) and dreamed of figuring out buses for tomorrow's excursions. Neither Geoff nor I felt we wanted (or could manage) dinner after that big lunch, but I did want a little something, so we stopped at the M&S food hall again on the way to the bus home: I got a couple of tea cakes with dried fruit, and he got a bottle of beer 😀 (Alcohol is contraindicated with the meds, but that didn't stop me having a couple of swallows!) Consumed them back at the hotel after bath and showers, and have been blogging every since.

Tomorrow, the plan is to visit the main local farmers market -- I love farmers markets! -- and pass by a 4000-year-old goddess statue, and then in the afternoon tour a local cidery, which means many samples of cider, plus biscuits, cheeses, and the cidery's own apple chutney. Might be another day without dinner!

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Seems like a good time to share (again) this bit of fic -- Firefly crossed over with the Book of Ruth. Though I can't quite get my head around the fact that it's 15 years old, it's still a pretty good story. :D

רות בגחלילית / Ruth on a Firefly (3783 words) by Kass
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Firefly, Hebrew Bible
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Malcolm Reynolds / Ruth
Characters: Ruth, Naomi, Malcolm Reynolds, Simon Tam, River Tam, Kaylee Frye, Jayne Cobb, Inara Serra
Additional Tags: Community: in_the_beginning, Shavuot
Series: Part 6 of Author's Favorites, Part 4 of Firefly fanworks
Summary:

"I see you found us a couple of wounded birds," the man says to Kaylee. The words are dismissive but his tone is kind.

"They're headed for Judah," Kaylee says. "And they're broke."

Still with the don't wannas, but for once our All Staff call was mostly interesting (though it never fails to baffle me that people put their requests for different soda in the vending machine in the anonymous complaint form instead of just asking the office manager dude about it - as I said to my boss, no questions about COLAs but always questions about colas, which evoked a real out loud laugh from her so you know, score) and I got the 2 main things I had to do this week done, so tomorrow can just be waiting around for other people to send me their meeting materials (I loathe how they have no consideration for me and my summer Friday sign-off at 2:30 pm, but the C-suite level folks are always like that).

In other news, now I am not seeing Baby Miss L this weekend, because the weather is supposed to be rainy and chilly, so the party was postponed till next weekend. It's fine. I have gotten some lovely videos and pictures of her dancing at a wedding she attended last weekend, and that will suffice for now.

So Tuesday night, I turned off the Knicks game while they were down by double-digits in the 4th quarter and went to bed. Imagine my surprise to learn that they had tied it up and then won in OT! Let's hope they can win in regulation tonight.

And finally, I knew Mike Keenan was a piece of shit, but there's some stuff in this article about the 1994 Rangers (gift link) that I did not know. Interesting read. They won then and haven't since, so I guess it might really have to last a lifetime.

Now I have to figure out what to have for dinner. I guess it could be quesadillas again. Idk.

*

Today was supposed to be a nice short easy walk of a day.

We started walking a few minutes after eleven. We caught the bus home -- well, to the pub down the road from our hotel for dinner, because once we got to the hotel boy howdy were we not leaving again -- at quarter past five.

It wasn't challenging walking, it was all basically level and the hardest part was that we were often walking in roadways, pressing ourselves against the hedge or ducking into driveways when a car went by. And we did see some lovely things, including another dolmen, and we walked out onto a part-time island that's only accessible at low tide, which was very cool. But we also walked through a bunch of not that interesting residential areas, and had to scramble across a rocky beach and clamber up its bank onto private land and sneak away to the road when our GPS utterly lied to us; we think its trail was probably programmed before all the residential construction we were walking past and through, because it absolutely insisted that we were supposed to be walking through places that were absolutely not possible to walk through.

Anyway, I am wiped, and we have to be up and out early to get to the ferry port for our day trip to the even smaller island of Sark, population 500 people (rising to 1,000 in the tourist season when seasonal tourism workers arrive) and zero cars. Fortunately I do not need to squeeze in time for breakfast, since the only thing I'll be consuming before we make landfall is a pill. But we'll ask if we can grab some bread and cheese and breakfast meat from the cold buffet before we leave, and picnic when we get to Sark.

As for recounting today's adventures, though, that's not happening tonight, and probably not tomorrow either, given our schedule. Geoff's blog of today is up, though, with a few pictures; he is less wiped than me, and also he travels with his laptop so he can type on a proper keyboard whereas I'm swipe-typing on my iPad.

G'night.

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How to Fake it in Society by KJ Charles:

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I'm eyeing KJ Charles' forthcoming The League of Lost Souls, but considering a bunch of her recent traditionally published stuff has been misses for me, I might hold off pre-ordering unless I find out that it includes queer ladies (the The Chosen and the Beautiful comparison in the blurb makes me wonder about that).

Mr Collins in Love by Lee Welch:

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A Choice of Destinies by Melissa Scott:

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At The World's Mercy, Volume 2 by Ning Yuan (translated by Serena):

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I had a bad case of the don't wannas today, and I don't anticipate it getting better tomorrow or Friday, but we finally start summer Fridays this week and have a 3 day weekend, so hopefully that will help. I could barely stay awake until 5 pm, so after I logged off, I napped hard, and had one of those dreams where I think I've woken up, but no, I'm still asleep and then I think I've woken up from that, but no, I'm still asleep, over and over until I finally do actually wake up and am like, how did I think I was awake in those dreams, it was so clearly not reality? Anyway, it was in the middle of a big thunderstorm and there is nothing better than being cozy in bed during a thunderstorm, so that was all right.

I did want to talk about a couple of books I've read!

What I've just finished
I don't think I ever said anything after finishing The Last Contract of Isako, but I liked it. It's a noir detective story set in a far-future colony that has lost contact with Earth, and the titular Isako is a corporate samurai on her last contract. I really liked her - she was a 50yo woman in a profession best handled by younger people and she knew it. ( spoilers )

I'm seeing Baby Miss L this weekend, so I bought her some books and also read them:

- We Will Rock Our Classmates: A Penelope Rex Book by Ryan Higgins, which was ADORABLE. Baby Miss L liked the first Penelope Rex book, so I think she will like this one, in which Penelope signs up to play guitar in the class talent show, as well.

- Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein, which was super cute. It's bedtime and little red chicken wants a bedtime story but then she keeps interrupting when her papa tries to tell her one.

- The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt (Author) and Oliver Jeffers (Illustrator), which was cute but a little samey for me as an adult - I bet kids love it.

I also reread Parade of Horribles so I think I understand some of it much better but some of it is still a little ...opaque. I'm going do another reread with my notes document open so I can check off stuff that got answered (or not) and add all the new stuff that will now have to be resolved (or not). I will say that while there were some fantastic moments, it's not my favorite book - it's probably in the lower half of my personal rankings, tbh, because I feel like ( spoiler ) I'm also thinking about how supposedly Dinniman said that books 9 and 10 are really one book split into two? And I can think of several ways to manage that, so I'm very interested to see how he does it.

*

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( books (Mukherjee, Davis, Mukherjee, Vo, Vo, Vo, Chan, Vo) )

yarning
Got the cat-shaped ornaments in the mail. Still working on the bunny commission. My hands are so out of shape/in arthritic and tendonditic pain. I'm so slow.

healthcrap
3 doc appts in the past week. Psych is moving away, leaving me in limbo til September (I have meds). I'm so tired, still. My folate levels are super high (B12 is normal), so I'm off vitamins and trying to limit my dietary folate in hopes that will make me feel better. But my whole diet was high-folate food. /frustrated. Anyway, I'm supposed to resume allergy shots, which I do not want to do with gas prices this high. Sigh.

#resist
June 27: No Kings 5, or whatever #50501 is calling it this time. I'm so furious at the regime.

I hope you're all doing well! Have a safe Memorial Day Weekend if this applies to you! <333

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me yesterday: I'd like to do another challenging hike tomorrow.

Geoff: Sounds good!

me: Want to sit down with me and compare options?

Geoff: Nah, I already listed the hikes that interested me; any one of those that you like will be fine. Go ahead and pick one.

Geoff today: Why are we climbing up and down and up and down again? Why are there so many stairs? Who thought this was a good idea?

me: I said--! And you said--! And I said--! And you said--!

Geoff: Alas. Hoist on my own petard.

Today we hiked for five hours, and we still have a 25-minute walk each way to dinner

At least the walk to dinner will be flat!

Today we walked around the Jerbourg peninsula, at the southeasternmost point of Guernsey. Once again we started in a residential/commercial area (where the bus let us off) and walked through it into more quiet residential and some farming areas, and then began following the familiarly precipitous coastal path. It was a bit chilly to start, and the islands of Herm and Sark (and the smaller islands and outcrops that I'm sure have names, but 🤷) were blurred in the mist, but over the course of the day it became quite warm and sunny. Having started the day in thermal leggings under long hiking pants, and in a long-sleeved shirt, a fleece, and a jacket, and also in my wool hat, by the time we caught our bus home I had stripped out of everything except my shirt (with the sleeves rolled up) and the thin hiking pants (with the legs zipped off to turn them into shorts). It was lovely!

And so was the walk, which there isn't much new to say about, but I bet I can find something.

On the way to the coastal trail proper we passed two watering places that were at least two hundred years old, according to the markers. Next to the road or footpath there's first a spring or fountain that was for people to get water at, enclosed in a small sort of cupboard maybe three feet by three feet by three feet with a latched door to keep animals from fouling it; I opened one of them, but the actual fountain/spring wasn't really running any more, and all I saw was a dark interior and some trash people had tossed in. (In general both Guernsey and Jersey have been incredibly free of litter, but we have seen some.) In front of that protected water source for humans was a stone trough for watering animals, into which the water would flow after the people had their fill, and from there it ran down a built channel toward the sea. (Geoff has a good picture of one in his blog entry for today: https://geoff-hart.com/fiction/Channel-Islands-2026/may20.html)

Once we reached the coastal path we went "oooh" at amazing views of rocky bays and isolated beaches (some are accessible only from the sea) and crashing waves, and at other views across the countryside; and saw a tower or two built by the English to defend against the French, especially after France allied with the fledgling USA in the Revolutionary War, that were restored and bore historical markers explaining their significance; and also passed several German bunkers, which were ignored and largely overgrown. Also several cafes, cunningly placed at sites of particular interest along the way, but we had provisioned ourselves before starting out, and it wasn't a walk I wanted to have a beer during.

I blogged the other day about school uniforms here; well, today on a spur off the main trail we encountered a group of eighty schoolkids, maybe eight or nine years old, and maybe ten or a dozen moderately harried-looking teachers (or parent volunteers, how would I know) and the kids were just in regular clothes, not uniforms, although they were all wearing yellow pinnies and blue bucket hats to make them easier to keep track of. I know there were eighty of them because the teacher leading the first group -- they were in tranches, with an adult at the start and end of each line of kids -- told us so, apologetically, and said it was a school trip. So there was a school that didn't have uniforms!

That part of the trail wasn't so challenging, it was mostly a couple of feet wide and gently sloping, and we walked along among the kids for a few minutes. One boy asked Geoff, "Do you want to take my picture?" and seemed a bit put out when Geoff smilingly declined; five minutes later he passed us again and asked, "Want to take it now?" But walking in a crowd of fourth-graders (or however they class them here) wasn't our plan, so when we came to a fork, where the spur trail ended in a big loop and you could go either clockwise or counterclockwise around it, we chose to go clockwise, because that way was much narrower and more precipitous, scrambling down the cliffside almost to sea level, and we knew there was no way they were taking the kids on it. Although we did amuse ourselves imagining the lengthy release forms their parents and guardians would have to sign if they did... On the far side of the loop, overlooking that bit of bay, was a tower of historical interest (built in 1778 to guard the bay against the French) and I think they took the kids to it on the upper, more accessible part of the loop, and then went back the way they'd come. In any case, we didn't see them again after we went different ways at the loop.

The trail also overlapped with part of the "Renoir walk"; Renoir lived in Guernsey for a short time and painted a number of landscapes in that area, and in several places plaques have been put up with reproductions of the painting he did in that spot and also empty picture frames, so you can look through them and have a Renoir's-eye view of the specific vista he painted.

Once we returned from the spur to the main trail and began rounding the peninsula, it got very up and down and up and down again. On one uphill slog I complained to Geoff, "If we're accumulating all this potential energy, why am I so exhausted?" and then amused myself terribly by answering myself sotto voce, "That's just science. And science only matters during the playoffs." "What?" asked Geoff. "Oh, nothing," I told him.

We met a number of other walkers coming and going, but also had long stretches where it was just us, and the sound of the wind and the waves. Okay, and maybe an airplane overhead, but go with me, here. It was gorgeous. And I get a real feeling of accomplishment from accomplishing a hike like that!

The whole trail was a giant loop around the peninsula (plus the spur off it with a smaller loop at its end), so we ended up at a bus stop a block from where we'd been dropped off to start it, and our timing was perfect; there was a bus home in eight minutes. (And not just "supposed to be": an actual bus!) Home, and at Geoff's exhausted request we went straight into the bath our generously upgraded room provides! Ooooh, did hot water ever feel good on our aching feet. Soaked for a while, then showered ("You mean I have to stand up again? Unfair!" I whined), and now we've been relaxing and blogging until it's time to leave for our dinner reservation at a nearby hotel restaurant we haven't been to before, but our hosts recommended it.

When I made the reservation this morning I chose indoor seating because it was a bit damp and chilly, but it has become so lovely out that I've just changed it to outdoor.

Geoff: Can you also change it to a ten-minute walk each way?

me: Sure, honey. I'll get right on that.

I haven't posted in more than 2 months because my sciatica pain got to be this constant low-level pain that drained my life force. I started doing PT, it got WORSE. Finally last week the ortho gave me a shot that *helped*, I feel MUCH better, I'm going to try to get back to Purrcy posting.

Behold the morning trap! so loving, so fluffy, so dangerous:
Purrcy the tuxedo tabby curls to exhibit his fluffy tummy, his white bunny paws. He gazes lovingly at the photographer, as if this isn't a trap

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby curls to exhibit his fluffy tummy, his white bunny paws. He gazes lovingly at the photographer, as if this isn't a trap

Those of you who do daily home glucose testing, how do you dispose of your sharps? Dirk & Beth now have to do this, I'm setting up testing stations for them.

I have book posting, too, but that's getting so long I'll make it a separate post.

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The Vacillations of Mind (4616 words) by Laura JV
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Characters: James T. Kirk, Spock (Star Trek), Janice Lester
Additional Tags: Episode: s03e24 Turnabout Intruder (Star Trek: The Original Series), Body Swap, Mind Meld, Vulcan Telepathy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:

When Spock mindmelds with Jim in Janice Lester's body, they come up with a plan.

but I just had a pint of cider, so I can't say how this will go

Yesterday we wandered around St Peter's Port just looking around, and also I went to Boots and dithered between the motion sickness med that the pharmacist said was stronger and the one he said was less likely to knock me out. (Not in those words, but basically.) I ended up picking the "less drowsy" and therefore "less effective" one, started stressing about it as soon as we walked out of the store, and was relived this morning to look up the active ingredient and discover/decide that I could definitely safely take another half-pill if I felt I needed it.

One thing I've noticed both here and in Jersey, btw, is that we haven't seen a single person begging on the street or apparently homeless. Very very different from home.

Anyway, after a while we headed off to the Guernsey Museum, which is an interesting combination of "neat temporary exhibits on subjects of local interest", "permanent exhibits on the history and culture of our island," and "IDK, somebody gave us this stuff and I guess it's interesting?" One of the temporary exhibits was partly focused on the tradition of "hedge veg": produce (and plants, eggs, etc.) set out for sale in a small unstaffed roadside shed or stand, with an "honesty box" for people to leave money in. I had noticed numbers of such stands both here and in Jersey -- these days, as well as or even instead of a box for cash, they may have a note posted saying how to electronically transfer payment to the seller for whatever you're taking. I always like seeing honesty boxes; they give me such a good feeling about the local culture.

I also liked the exhibit on the history of human habitation of the island, from neolithic times onward, and very much enjoyed the recorded samples of sayings and adages in Guernésiais, with both literal and idiomatic translations into English. (I always want both literal and idiomatic translations! Literal translations are fascinating!) Mostly the Guernésiais is entirely incomprehensible to me, and then every now and then a word that's exactly the same as modern French pops up and I have a total Steve Rogers moment: "I understood that reference!"

Many other things were also interesting: "here's a display about a nineteenth-century glassblower who made replicas of ocean invertebrates!" "here's a selection of local traditional medicine!" "here's a Haida totem pole!" (that one was very much in the "IDK, somebody gave it to us" category), but after a while I started fading. Also, as well as motion sickness meds, I had also bought more contact lens solution at Boots and had stopped in at the visitor information centre and bought two jars of the seaweed chili crisp, so my bag was quite heavy. Back we went to the hotel, to rest up before dinner.

Dinner was "pie night" at the local pub, which was definitely in part a way for them to use up the leftovers from carvery night -- chicken and ham pie, you say? shepherd's pie (the proper kind, with lamb), you say? Remarkably familiar roasted potatoes and carrots and parsnips? -- but was tasty and fun anyway. The beef and mushroom, chicken and ham, and roasted vegetable pies had pastry top crusts; the shepherd's pie and the seafood pie were topped with mashed potato (which explains where the previous night's baked potatoes went). All were quite tasty except the seafood pie, in which I found the seafood sadly indistinguishable from the potato. Ah, well, it was a fun experience anyway.

Today we had a slower morning and a later start than usual, but it was nice not charging off to do something right away. The hotel had done a load of laundry for us, so we tidied our luggage up a bit. We also asked the woman staffing the desk (the hotel's co-owner) about the best way to book a cab for next week: we have to catch a 7 am ferry back to Jersey on Tuesday, which means being at the ferry port at six, and the buses don't run that early. They have a list of all the taxi operators and their phone numbers posted (some of them are company names and some are just somebody's name) and at first she just recommended one of them, and then she was like, eh, what the heck, and called him up herself and made a booking for us right then ("Hi, Glen, it's Ank; do you have a cab for 5:45 Tuesday morning? Yes, it's for two of our guests here, they have to catch the ferry. Great, thanks"). It's fun getting to see some inner workings of a community I'm only visiting!

Eventually we pulled ourselves together and walked an hour northward to the Folk and Costume Museum. The walk was along quiet streets, past homes and farms and schools. I don't know if all the schoolkids here wear uniforms or if it's just that we only recognize as schoolkids the ones who are in uniforms, but we certainly have seen a lot of crowds of boys in matching dark trousers and jackets and ties (Geoff was incredibly amused at the sight of a troop of boys heading out for phys ed or whatever they call it here, running out onto the soccer field in their jackets and ties), and crowds of girls in matching jackets and sometimes ties and often the shortest skirts I could possibly imagine. Like, are you for real with that? Those are the kinds of skirts that girls in some schools elsewhere get sent home to change out of!

(I think I've seen one or two girls in school-uniform trousers, but they might have been feminine-looking boys; it's not like I was going to stare at and scrutinize them, I was just privately going "huh, hm?" as they went by. I am somewhat curious about how -- and whether -- schools that demand gendered uniforms deal with trans, nb, or gnc kids.)

Anyway, we got to the park where the museum was supposed to be, didn't see it, but did enjoy wandering through a reproduction of a Victorian kitchen garden (artichokes always look so... unlikely! and I'm not sure I'd ever actually seen espaliered fruit trees before), and then we found the park's cafe and split a plate of chips; we were about to eat them at one of the outside tables but it started to rain, so we took hits of our antiviral nasal spray and went in to eat. And after that it had stopped raining and we managed to find the museum, right next door. The power of fried potatoes, I guess?

I don't have a lot to say about the museum; it was all interesting but I'm kind of out of energy to describe it. More reproductions of period rooms, mostly nineteenth century (I was most interested in the kitchen, dairying, and laundry spaces), and collections of farm equipment and craft/professional tools (all men's crafts: tinsmithing, carpentry, etc.), and a whole series of dresses (and a few men's clothes) from the early nineteenth century through to the 1970s. The descriptions of how the older dresses had been repeatedly mended, and altered, and let in and out, were the most interesting to me there; obviously the ones that survived to be put in a museum a century or two later were the ones owned by people who never threw anything out if it could possibly still be used, but even if they're not fully representative (and certainly people kept clothes much longer then than they do now), it's fascinating to think about the human history sewn into them.

The rain had passed over while we were in the museum, yay! We caught a bus to St Peter Port and wandered out on a long pier at the south end of the harbor to Castle Cornet, part of which I think dates back to like the twelfth century, if I remember the signage correctly, and part of which was built by the Germans when they updated and extended its fortifications against the expected English attempt at recapture. The Channel Islands weren't in fact counter-invaded by the Allies, of course, but the signage told us that the Allies did attack Guernsey forcefully to neutralize Nazi intelligence and anti-aircraft capability in advance of D-Day. It wryly remarked that Castle Cornet is probably the only British castle ever to be strafed by the RAF... I got a photo that, if it comes out, should show the centuries-old stone walls, and buildings inside them that at a guess are nineteenth or early twentieth century, and then on top of the walls a concrete bunker that I'm confident was a German emplacement. (We didn't pay to go into the castle, so we were just spectating and speculating from outside.)

Then we wandered back through the pedestrianized shopping area and bought some sandwiches and drinks at the M&S food hall (is it no longer called Marks & Spencer?) to bring home and eat in our hotel room in lieu of another restaurant meal. A very welcome shower, food, a bitter beer for Geoff and the aforementioned pint of cider for me, and I've been blogging ever since!

And I believe that by now, two hours later, I have both caught up and sobered up.

I have been sober for one year after many decades of heavy drinking. By now, I am somewhat comfortable being around others when they drink. I also enjoy entertaining friends in my apartment, but I no longer maintain a well-stocked bar, nor do I wish to. So, what should I do about dinner parties? I want to be a gracious host, but I don’t want to offer a full range of alcoholic beverages to my guests. Should I ask them in advance what they want to drink and stock it? (That seems a bit intense.) Should I buy a bottle each of red and white wine and hope that suffices? (That seems stingy.) Or should I tell my guests that dinner is a “bring your own bottle” occasion? (That seems ungenerous.) Help!

SOBER

First, let me commend you on your sobriety. Making meaningful and positive change after decades of habitual behavior is a big achievement. Well done! So, making note of your phrase (you write that you are “somewhat comfortable” being around drinking), and keeping the relative stakes in mind — protecting your sobriety versus giving a dinner party — I suggest that you hold off serving booze for now. Your sobriety is still relatively new, and it is more important to safeguard it than it is to serve alcohol to friends.

You don’t mention whether you attend a support group for people in recovery. But dropping into a meeting to speak with others who have lived through experiences similar to yours would probably be helpful. They can’t make this decision for you, but hearing their suggestions may help you make a better decision for yourself. I have watched friends in recovery struggle with alcohol that is left over at the end of the evening — as well as with the temptation to join guests in drinking during dinner.

I also suggest that you rethink what makes a good host. For many decades, that probably entailed serving alcohol to your guests. But really, the act of welcoming friends into your home for a meal — and perhaps a nonalcoholic beer or cocktail — is more than enough. No one needs to drink at every meal, and your friends don’t need you to serve them alcohol to feel valued by you.

That tumblr post going around reminded me that while I don't remember if my elementary school taught us what Ms. meant as part of a formal lesson, I do distinctly remember learning about it (and that it's pronounced 'Miz') when I was 8 or so because my teacher used Ms. and asked us to call her Ms. [last name] instead of Miss or Mrs.

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what a fucking wild night of sports. the Mets scored TEN RUNS in the TWELFTH INNING and the Nats brought in a position player to pitch, and the umpires had to call the replay officials to find out if that was allowed! Spoiler: It was, because it was after the 10th inning? Or something? If you're within a regular 9-inning game, I think you have to be losing by 8 or winning by 10 before it's allowed, but apparently the rules change in extra innings. who knew? #LFGM

ANYWAY. It was bonkers, and then I turned away just in time to see the Canadiens score the winning goal in OT in Game 7!!! I would have been okay with either team winning, and now I just need them to beat Carolina and whoever comes out of the West to win it all and lift the Cup!

And tomorrow, the Knicks are back in action and will hopefully do well and go to the finals! #go ny go ny go

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seperis

Page Summary

the_shoshanna - Monday, our last-in-a-way day
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
dine - all we do is win, win, win
ranalore - that not-really-spa experience at home
musesfool - you're dangerous, you don't know what you want
trobadora - Question!
aurumcalendula in vidding - New Vid: My Redemption | Star Trek: Discovery & Star Trek: Section 31
escapade_team in escapade_con - [ONINE] Escapade 36.5 Panel Suggestion Party Dates!
the_shoshanna - Well, that was an aspect of local culture we had not previously encountered
the_shoshanna - it is very hot today
rivkat - Fiction dump
serrico - Ficcish things!
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
dine - bonjour, hi!
serrico - The Pretender fic!
princessofgeeks - Not enough facepalm in the world
rivkat - Nonfiction
the_shoshanna - it was not another day without dinner. Mmmmmmm yum.
aurumcalendula - Hummingbirds!
serrico - Qua qua qua qua
dine - well, that didn't work - but I have at least three more terrible ideas
princessofgeeks - idle question
trobadora - 520 Day! :D :D :D
the_shoshanna - a day on Sark
princessofgeeks - Hmmm
dine - life's a drama - the least it owes you is popcorn
kass - An old favorite
musesfool - and he goes down swinging
the_shoshanna - in which we utterly fail to take it easy
dine - I am not a member of the CIA or any other intelligence agency
aurumcalendula - Some books I've been reading recently
musesfool - and it's on target every time
princessofgeeks - Greece 2026
sage - What I'm Doing Wednesday
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
the_shoshanna - Wednesday: oof and yay and, soon, yum
mecurtin - Purrcy posting is back! and a question about glucose testing
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
dine - fandom waters my crops, clears my skin and cures my depression
princessofgeeks - New TV: Off Campus
laurajv - FIC: The Vacillations of Mind (K/S.)
the_shoshanna - trying to catch up on blogging
katiedid717 in agonyaunt - Social Q's: As a Sober Person, How Should I Serve Alcohol to Friends at Dinner Parties?
aurumcalendula - (no subject)
dine - home is where the hockey is
musesfool - put it in the books!
princessofgeeks - state of the princess
mrshamill - Day fifteen, sixteen: I don't wanna go anywhere!
emrinalexander - The search
dine - there is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way

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

Credit

Base style: Open Spaces by seperis
Theme: New Green by seperis

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