Tales From An Alternate Reality

Wildlife 2.0

2026-05-01T05:39:18Z

I managed to avoid running over a snake today, which is a plus. It was around 83F, and they tend to come out in the heat... and then lie on the pavement in the shade. Most of the time, I wind up running over them because I think they're a stick and it's too late to avoid them anyway. :(

This one was not a rattlesnake, thank goodness. And it was a chonk! Wow.

I also saw some turklets. It's that time of year! These were young enough to be cute (which doesn't last long). And I spotted the aftermath of a fish hoping to chomp a black butterfly that was hovering over the river.

Being early May, the wild grape buds are out. They have a sweet, peppery smell that is nothing like actual grapes. The cottonwood trees are also releasing fluff into the air, and that can come and go for a month depending on how often we transition back into winter weather. Soon, squirrel mating season will be running full tilt, and I'll have something else to dodge while biking out there. But in the meantime, I hope the sweetness of spring lingers a little bit longer. :)

comments

Wildlife

2026-04-28T23:48:21Z

I saw a turtle at the edge of the bike path on my ride today. I'm not sure what it was doing there, though turtles have been spotted in that area before. But it's a crawl of maybe half a block to the river, where the water supply is. This was a decent-sized specimen, about 7" in diameter, though they can get bigger.

I dodged a fair number of fuzzy black caterpillars out there, but it was nothing like 20-30 years ago, when they were everywhere! We also don't get clouds of orange ladybugs anymore. I spotted one in flight last week, and I've picked up hitchhikers before, but there are so few of them now. The enormous increase in turkeys, egrets, and Canadian geese in the intervening years seems a likely cause.

I occasionally get actual red ladybugs at the house, probably because we have so many roses (50-60 plants). People buy them for aphid control and release them in their yards, and they migrate to our house. ;) The ones that occur naturally in our yard are more of a yellow-brown color, and sometimes they pinch. Rude. :D

Speaking of plants, I got ZERO daffodils this year. The shoots came up, the same as always, but no flowers. I have a clump near the front door (where we can see them from inside), and another across the walkway. That second group has never flowered. I planted them maybe 8-10 years ago, and I even dug them up once and replanted them at a more shallow depth, but Nada. I'd like more daffodils, not less. Maybe it's too shady where I have them? Or maybe it was that endless fog earlier this winter?

I hope to get out this coming weekend and do something about the weeds and all the roses that need dead-heading. I would have liked to do that last weekend, but it rained again. I didn't get much of anything done, TBH. A lot of my TODOs involve dealing with the extra framed family pictures that we don't have places for now. It's as much an emotional task as a physical one, which is why I can't seem to do it. Give me strength!

comments

Another day...

2026-04-26T19:46:11Z

another staged assassination attempt. :( What's really at issue? Distracting peole from the war in Iran and the Epstein files. Not to mention grift and treason, but who's counting?

In lighter news, Sacramento is still in the off-again/on-again rain cycle. A few days of biking outdoors, a few days in the garage. This is keeping the summer heat at bay, though, so I'll take it. May is coming, and that can be the start of hell. Or not. We got married on May 20, some almost 37 years ago. It was a beautiful day, about 80F. On our first anniversary, it poured all weekend. Other years? 90-100F. There's no way of knowing until you're in it.

We watched Beckett last night with The Boy, which was entertaining but another reminder that Denzel Washington's son will probably never have a huge career because he looks like his mother rather than his father. Pleasant, but not distinctive. Then HalfshellHusband and I watched Happiness For Beginners, which I always thought was a Simon Pegg movie. It was not— different flavor altogether— but we enjoyed it. Gorgeous scenery.

( Books )

Speaking of which, there are ads now for eyedrops you can use to temporarily remove the need for reading glasses. Ullhhhh... That seems kind of risky to me. I used to have daily contact lenses that would sharpen my right-eye vision and make my left eye work for short distances. But I always wound up taking the left lens out when I biked, because otherwise I couldn't see the traffic behind me clearly enough to know if it was safe to merge left. And most of my reading now is either computer screen or Kindle, and the Kindle lets me adjust the font size up and down!

The medical miracles I want have to do with weight control (currently ineligible) and shedding less hair. I've seen a little improvement on that last issue. My sister bought and then didn't use about 6 months' worth of Nutrafol, which she passed along to me. AFAIK, it isn't helping the corners of my lower eyelashes grow back, but it HAS reduced the amount of hair that comes off in the shower. Possibly due to the extra iodine— added to my multivitamin, I'm at 250% RDA. \o? My doctor won't raise my thyroid levels (which I think would help BOTH issues), so maybe this is a small workaround? It may also be helping my energy levels and mental clarity a little, both of which can suffer with low thyroid.

What's everyone been doing this weekend?

comments

Project Hail Mary

2026-04-21T21:14:21Z

What a fantastic movie! We finally got to see it, and absolutely loved it. Funny, heartfelt, sad at times, and really, really good. I was glad I hadn't read the book beforehand, because that made the entire story a surprise and I enjoyed discovering it. I've became a late fan of Ryan Gosling, thanks to his work in Bladerunner 2049 and Barbie. Who would have thought?

We also watched a Netflix preview screening that I can't talk about. This is the third one, though, with the first one being about 8 months ago. Do they ever rework those movies based on beta-group feedback? Or just scrap the projects? :O

Saturday, we saw My Oxford Year, which we both liked quite a bit. Romances are really hit and miss, but this one was good. Our son was out of town this weekend, so this was a good opportunity. Romances and romantic comedies are not his thing.

In TV series, I've been watching an older detective procedural called Blue Murder on BritBox, which I quite like. But I've veered off temporarily to binge-watch Our Flag Means Death on Hulu. What a bizarre show. Kind of cracktastic, really. I'm mainly in it for Taika Waititi and the weird minor characters. :O

We had quite a bit of rain and wind last week, so I've been biking in the garage more than I'd like. More thunderstorms and lots of rain today, so I'll be in there again in a few hours! There will be a river or two running through the garage, and now that the floor is epoxy instead of the concrete it used to be, it's really risky to go in there on bare feet. The floor always looks wet, which means you can't see when it actually IS wet, and it's as slippery as glass. :(

Time to start a new hour-long series in there, now that I've finished another Harlan Coben thing. Will it be Season 2 of Beef? Season 3 of The Night Agent? Or will I go back to Hulu for Euphoria, despite having to deal with the long commercial breaks?

comments

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2026-04-12T20:27:36Z

Soft Ingredients
3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp Jiff Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter (214 grams)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp., cut into large pieces (1 stick; 109 grams)
3 tablespoons milk, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla, plus extra if desired
1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk and 1 egg white, room temp., lightly beaten in stages
Dry Ingredients
1¼ cup packed brown sugar (248 grams)
1¾ cup gluten-free baking flour plus 3 tablespoons (280 grams)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (12-ounce) bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream peanut butter and butter together thoroughly in a large bowl. Combine milk, vanilla, and egg in a separate bowl, then add to peanut butter mixture. Cream thoroughly
3. Whisk the dry ingredients together thoroughly in a separate large bowl.
4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed ingredients. Mix thoroughly, but do not over-mix. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Let the dough rest for 30 to 60 minutes, preferably refrigerate overnight.
6. Drop the cookie dough onto baking sheets, but do not roll or flatten. Edges may be molded to form circular shapes.

Baking time for 60 small-sized cookies: 9-12 minutes.

For 60 cookies
1 cookie: 100 calories. 43 mg. sodium.
For 36 cookies
1 cookie: 166 calories. 72 mg. sodium.
Total calories: 5,961. Total sodium: 2,561 mg.
1 tablespoon of dough: 68 calories; 29 mg sodium.

-----------------
We use Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 Baking Flour (blue bag). Other gluten-free flours may produce different results.

comments

KaBOOM!

2026-04-11T20:37:19Z

We're in the third day of a string of thunderstorms that could last through tomorrow. This isn't really the time of year for them-- they're more of a winter or summer event. The last time I lived somewhere where this was common, I was in Illinois. And thunderstorms were the beginning of the tornado season. SO glad to be back out West again.

This weather means I'm back to biking in the garage again. I'm about to finish Run Away on Netflix (I swear, James Nesbitt is everywhere), and I've started re-watching Arrested Development as my "early" entertainment for the first 30 minutes or so. I bike for 85 minutes plus warm-down, so I need a LOT of distraction out there. I should return to Season 2 of Euphoria (Hulu) again, despite the commercials. There are a couple of things on Amazon that look worthy too, but the commercial breaks just about kill me, so I mainly watch stuff on Netflix. Season 3 of Night Agent is ready, so maybe that next?

On the plane ride back from San Diego, I watched the remake of Rebecca. Armie Hammer was as handsome as ever (one of the few blond men I find attractive), though not sufficiently brooding enough. Lily James was good, though, and Kristen Scott Thomas was bracingly chilly as Mrs. Danvers. You can see why Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series always has people in the book world employing armies of Mrs. Danvers clones as agents of ruthlessness. :O

I'm still trying to get caught up with my friends-list. There are so many new people that even when I get near the end, I refresh and more posts come up! But I hope everyone had a good Easter, and that those both near and far will be seeing an end to winter soon. It has boomeranged here for a bit, but better that than an early summer.

comments

San Diego!

2026-04-09T18:44:52Z

Apart from the hotel snafu and leaving my meds behind, we had a great time in San Diego.

We started Saturday off by going to a cute little French cafe. Then we went to the Zoo. Sticker shock: Adult admission to the zoo for one day is $80! Holy cow! We rented a wheelchair to push HalfshellHusband around, but he'd still had enough after 3 hours, which was too bad. We covered about half of the zoo— it's huge! But we saw most of the birds, monkeys, and the African section. We never quite found the red pandas, and had to skip the giant pandas because you either pay extra or wait in line for more than an hour to see them. We missed the fossa, which was either indoors or hiding, but saw the serval (which was larger than I expected). We also saw the orangutan baby, the tiny Chinese alligator, and watched hippos snoozing underwater (but didn't realize we missed the chance to see a pygmy hippo! *cries*). The exhibits are large with really nice habitats, and the landscaping is beautiful. I could have spent the entire day there.

We went to dinner at BJ's Brewhouse, and had a monster pizookie for dessert. It was delicious, though our daughter shunned the blue ice cream. I can't really blame her.

Sunday, we went to the La Jolla Shores beach. Parking was a nightmare because EVERYONE was there, both local and people visiting for Spring Break. SO crowded, which was completely new. This doesn't happen in Oregon or Northern California— the weather at the beach is colder, so fewer people go there to hang out all day. Our daughter joined us, and we watched the waves and the little kids and enjoyed the sun.

Dinner was at La Cesarina, our daughter's favorite Italian restaurant. Sticker shock again! But really good food. I had ravioli with mushroom sauce, and HSH had (as usual) the lasagna.

Our daughter had to work quite a bit of Monday, but mid-afternoon we went to a cafe on an ocean bluff where people board hang-gliders to sail out over the beach. That was really neat!

Then we went to see the Padres/Giants baseball game. The stadium was really impressive, with lots of different types of food available. HSH and our daughter opted for hot dogs (what). I passed due to ongoing queasiness. The Padres' fans love them, and it was a great experience. I had qualms during the national anthem, though. The crowd near us was largely Hispanic and very patriotic, and it hurt to see that and know how badly we're treating them.

I'm not much of a baseball fan, so one of the biggest surprises for me was the number of left-handed batters. It seemed to be about 1 in 5, which apparently matches the MLB overall. Interestingly enough, my profession (embedded software engineering) also tends to have that same, higher proportion of left-handers. The new Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system is in play now. The Padres invoked it for one of the pitches, but the umpire was ruled correct. The Giants ultimately won that game (HSH was happy about that), though the Padres got their only two runs in the 9th inning, so it was close!

Our last morning there was Tuesday, and we had brunch at a New Zealand cafe(!) in the heart of downtown. It's our daughter's favorite place for French toast, and we all ordered it. SO good, though I wasn't expecting the cinnamon.

Then it was time to say goodbye, so we could get to the San Diego airport ridiculously early. It's always hard. We really wish our daughter lived closer. After the farewells, we had a slightly convoluted trip to the car rental facility, thanks to a couple of Google Maps glitches. That was a first! But the return went smoothly, and we got to the airport in time to spend about 2 hours sitting at the gate. \o?

It was great, but over much too quickly!

comments

Back again

2026-04-04T23:41:15Z

We got back from San Diego on Tuesday night. It was a great trip overall, and wonderful to spend so much time with our daughter. But it got off to a rocky start.

There's a lesson in here about touching bases with your hotel early, though I don't think it would have helped us. When we got to our hotel at 10:00 on Friday night, the desk clerk informed me that they had cancelled our reservation. This was because they had overbooked by 6 rooms, and the manager told her to cancel anything that wasn't pre-paid. Late at night in a strange city is not the time to find yourself without a hotel! The clerk suggested the next hotel over, which fortunately had a room. But ugh. More than the price of my carefully arranged lodging, and we were hit with the smell of mildew smell as soon as we opened the door to our room. By 11:30pm, I was searching for another place to stay for the remaining 3 nights of our trip.

I found one, which was listed as having breakfast and a fitness room. Yay! But no. When we got there on Saturday, a sign noted that they no longer served breakfast and the desk clerk informed me that the fitness room was being renovated. I could not win for losing. Also? More mildew smell when we entered THAT room.

Friday night was also when I realized that I had somehow forgotten to pack my meds. They were all in the 7-day organizer, ready to go, but it was still sitting on the bathroom shelf at home. /o\ It wasn't worth it to hunt down replacements for just 4 days, so I went without instead, but what a stupid mistake. I was also envisioning being ragingly hungry for the duration, since one of the meds and a supplement both suppress appetite and I am otherwise always hungry, so I was dreading that.

Surprise! That didn't happen. Instead, I spent each day feeling swimmy between the ears (vague-headed and with a sensation almost like having my ears randomly pop), getting sudden hot flashes, and riding the border between nausea and hunger. My blood pressure was also low for 3-4 hours each morning, and it was like I couldn't fully wake up. I wondered what I was taking that normally addressed that-- thyroid meds? Antidepressants? It wasn't until a couple of days in that it occurred to me that those might be withdrawal symptoms, rather than part of my base unmedicated state. IDK. But the lack of hotel breakfast also meant I had no coffee! I had to make up the difference with caffeinated diet soda, which... Ullllhhhh. On the plus side, we got to try Blackberry Dr. Pepper! On the minus side, I also stopped enjoying it by the second day.

More on the actual trip in a separate post. I've been busy with work and trying to get caught up with my friends-list now that we're back.

comments

I dreamed...

2026-03-26T02:03:06Z

I dreamed that I was in a group of adults being taught as first graders by Mariska Hargitay. She was making us diagram sentences, which seemed REALLY inappropriate for that age, even though we were all grown-ups who should have known how to do it. \o?

I finished Dungeon Crawler Carl, which was lots of fun. Now I'm reading the second book. There are several of these, so I might have to take a break from the series here and there.

Viewing-wise, I mentioned a while back that we'd added Ashes to Ashes (Amazon and Britbox) to our list of TV series to watch. It's a follow-on to Life On Mars, and is really just an excuse to let the Gene Genie and his sidekicks run riot in London. We are all on board with that idea, and have just started Season 2. :D We also finished Continuum (Amazon) a couple of weeks ago, and the conclusion was satisfying even if that wasn't necessarily the ending we were hoping for. But it made sense, and was consistent with the series. Always an important factor, especially for shows involving time travel.

And finally, we're flying to San Diego to visit our daughter this weekend. Nervous about what's happening with the TSA and wait times, but very excited about seeing her! \o/

comments

The bike is back!

2026-03-19T22:34:23Z

The repair shop finished late on Tuesday, so it was gone almost a whole week. That's the longest I've been without a bike apart from vacations and when our garage burned up.

When I got it back, the seat post was jacked up about 3/4 inch too high. The mechanics never put it back after testing the gears, in spite of the blue painter's tape that shows exactly where to set it. The rear tool kit was also upside down (?), and they'd returned the handlebars to the neutral position. The shop had previously advised tilting them up a little to reduce the reach and the strain on the nerves of my left hand. I'd wondered if that had helped at all, but yesterday's ride produced numbness sooner than before, so clearly it did. I've restored the tilt again.

The ride itself was kind of brutal, due to the sudden jump in temperatures. I had to cut it short by 3 miles, and it was getting pretty tough by the end. It was only 87F, but that is a LOT until I start to get acclimated. My maximum temperature starts at 88F early in the season, and by August it's at 94F— and I will actually start a ride at 89F if it's not going to get too much hotter. But yesterday? Much too soon.

I finished watching Doctor Foster. Not terribly happy about the ending. Then I tried and rejected a bunch of BritBox comedies that were 1) unfunny and/or 2) too stupid to tolerate. One even had a laugh track. So I started Without Motive, a police procedural set in Bristol. Interesting mystery, but the characters are unlikable and it features a Welsh DCS who is incompetent and a drunk. May not finish it.

Bookwise, I've started Dungeon Crawler Carl. It was recommended to me, and so far so good. An alien species comes back to Earth to make good on the minerals/elements claim they filed (in a galactic office) 50 years earlier. All of the buildings/structures are flattened, so the only survivors are people and animals who were outside. They're eligible to play the Dungeon Crawler game, an 18-level challenge with increasing difficulty and reducing eligibility. The sole winner gets... to live? I think opting out (or not getting one of the limited admission slots) also equals death, so playing is advisable. Carl is accompanied by his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, for added fun. Also? Level 1 contains goblins. \o/

I need to line up my next book. I have some free Amazon thing, but the quality is never guaranteed.

comments

Misery Train

2026-03-16T22:13:08Z

HalfshellHusband is in the throes of prepping for a colonoscopy tomorrow. The process has changed, and I don't know why.

It used to be a day without solid food and a lot of fluids and laxatives to clear you out. It's similar now, but it starts 48 hours pre-op with a day of really restricted food choices (applesauce, chicken, rice, yogurt). The day before the procedure is 8 ounces of water every hour, followed by starting the laxative liquid stuff at 6pm the night before surgery. WHAT? That'll keep you up all night! Why not do that during the daytime?

HSH called Kaiser to make sure he couldn't start the laxative early, and they confirmed and made things worse: since he has an early morning surgery, they want him to stop the laxative liquid briefly tonight, then get up at 2:30 a.m. and start again before ending it at 4:15 a.m. How is that good for the patient? He'll be exhausted from sleep deprivation. :(

Right now, he's using his typical method of coping with misery/recuperation, AKA watching the LOTR movies. I expect more of the same tomorrow, after his procedure is done.

comments

Taxes are done

2026-03-15T20:07:32Z

A big relief, as always, and the California state returns are in a manila envelope, waiting to go to the post office. The combined federal and state returns are the size of a substantial pamphlet now. I mentioned earlier that we had significant capital gains this year. I don't know what gets into our financial advisor sometimes (though she's really good at her job), but every 5-6 years this happens and our AGI suddenly balloons. This year? We owe about $2500 in federal taxes and $2300 in state, and that triggered a need to pay estimated tax payments in 2026. What a pain! Note that if the government(s) owed us this much back, we wouldn't get interest on the extra withholding, so why the panic?

I tried to go to our company's website to adjust my W-4 instead, but none of the links were working yesterday. Might be under maintenance. I also wanted to use the employee benefits webpage to rent a car for our upcoming trip to San Diego, but it was misbehaving too. More crap deferred onto my never-ending TODO list!

I finished reading Terminal Chaos, the second book in the Station Eternity series. That was fun— and only took me 4 days, as opposed to the 11 days to read Adventures In Calamity Physics. I knew Calamity was taking a long time, but geez! And now I'm a third of the way through the second book in the How To Become A Dark Lord And Die Trying series. It's also fun, though with way too many footnotes. My main complaint is a common issue for a lot of male authors writing female main characters: the women are highly sexed and also bisexual. It's like they're fanficcing their own creation. \o?

My bike is still in the shop, where the earliest I could possibly get it back is late tomorrow. Feeling antsy! But I got some errands done Friday and Saturday that I would normally have to split across weekends. Friday, I bought Easter candy. Saturday, I took my broken violin bow in to have it repaired and rehaired, and saw that I was near a Home Depot, so I went there afterward. I bought some CLR for the hard water stains we get, some of which showed up about 4 months after we moved back into our house. I also got a new salvia plant for the one in the front yard that 1) Died last year and 2) Whose replacement the gardener killed with Roundup. Plus some morning glory seeds (to replace the plants near the garage we lost in the fire), and a houseplant to put in the clay pot our daughter hand-painted for me as a gift. That means I have some gardening to do this afternoon...

I've been staying up too late watching Doctor Foster on BritBox, because it's an addictive train wreck. Need to get back on DST newtime again.

comments

Suck. Age.

2026-03-13T01:58:50Z

Well, yesterday's bike ride didn't go so well. :(

Newer bikes often have the gear-shifter and brake functions embedded in the same part of the handlebars. Pull toward you, and the bike brakes. Push sideways, and it changes gears. But... push just a tiny bit on the diagonal and it starts to chew through the derailleur cable.

So, I started to have trouble getting into the top gear a few days ago, and sure enough... I was trying to shift down for a hill yesterday, and there was a "zzzk!" sound followed by the bike going into the top gear and becoming a one-speed. :O

I had to stop and turn around, and then bike almost 5 miles home in the hardest gear. Worse yet, the bike shop is really backed up, so instead of getting my bike back today, they will not be able to even start working on it until Monday. That's forever! *cries*

I absolutely hate this handlebar design. I break a derailleur cable about once a year because of it, whereas the shift levers on my bike from 20 years ago never let me down. :(

comments

Finished!

2026-03-11T01:26:45Z

I finished reading Adventures in Calamity Physics yesterday. There was a major plot zig around 85% of the way done, and then a zag after the 90% mark. Did not see either of them coming! Now I'm on Terminal Chaos, the second book in the series that starts with Station Eternity. I like the characters in it— especially the rock-like aliens.

This weekend, I photographed a bunch of stuff and posted it for sale on Craigslist. It included a damaged antique Victrola cabinet, which I thought I'd be lucky to give away for free. Hah! I probably should have charged something for it, just to cut down on the number of flaky people messaging me about it all weekend who couldn't seem to actually follow through. But! It went to someone who is going to strip it and restore it to its former glory, and I couldn't have asked for a better recipient.

Saturday night, HalfshellHusband and I watched Letters To Juliet, in which Amanda Seyfriend was woefully miscast (too callow) and Vanessa Redgrave made up for it. \o?

Sunday afternoon, I went for a bike ride out on the parkway. BIG surprise there— they have finally opened the rest of the lower parkway after closing it for 3 1/2 years while they, IDK, added a lane or two to the Business 80 over-crossing there? It's really nice to have the rest of that downriver option. There are always fewer people there, and I can't go very far upriver on weekends because of the increased amount of idioting that makes biking there (in clip-in pedals) dangerous. This means I don't have to do a bunch of tight loops over and over again to get my 20+ miles in on downriver days anymore. \o/

Not looking forward to the summer heat, though. Two weeks ago, we had our random 53^o day. Next week? It's supposed to hit 89^o. NOoooooooooo!

comments

More -ish than LEGO

2026-03-08T20:59:43Z

Guess what I found at Amazon, while looking through Book Nook-style LEGO and peudo-LEGO sets? A Tardis set for all the Whovians out there. This is a wooden model-kit rather than being made of LEGO-style bricks, but it's still neat. There are a bunch of other Book Nooks offered by the same company, which include a variety of Steampunk-themed things and zodiac- and tarot-related sets. \o/

I did our taxes this weekend, and even with Turbotax it was more of a pain than it needed to be. We actually owe money this year, thanks to a bunch of capital gains that I didn't even know had happened. They typically get automatically reinvested. I.e., we often don't actually see any real money, just the changes in investment account balances. And yes, I realize that's a problem most people probably wish they had. Given all this, you'd think I'd be more sold on retiring this year. But I'm leery because of Trump and his effect on the affordability of healthcare. HalfshellHusband is a high consumer of health services, so having to get independent coverage makes me nervous.

I'm 3/4 of the way through Adventures in Calamity Physics, a coming-of-age novel about a high school senior who suffers a catastrophic trauma. She has an insufferably erudite Casanova of a father, and a rather pretentious friend group she was pressed into joining by a well-meaning teacher. Despite how it sounds, it's an amusing and mostly (drily) humorous read. It's work, though. Much of the prose includes references to books or films as passing supplements to descriptions or situations, so it's full of citation notes. And you find yourself reading every one of them.

Movie-wise... we watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning on Netflix last weekend. Ulllhhh. The inside-the-situation-room scene was particularly bad, with some of the worst and needlessly wordiest dialogue ever seen in Hollywood. None of the actors seemed to believe in what they were saying. Plus, there's the endless over-reliance on rubber mask disguises, which wasn't believable in the first film. :( There were some fun car chases, but a lot of the movie seemed like noise and flailing trying to disguise a lack of conviction. \o?

Now, in the throes of the spring-forward bleariness, I need to get ready to go bicycling. Today will be outdoors, after three days of being stuck in the garage because of excessive wind. Welcome to spring in Sacramento. :O

comments

More pseudo-LEGOs

2026-03-03T00:41:30Z

I don't think I mentioned that HalfshellHusband got me a fantastic Lumibricks Time-Rift Library set for Valentine's Day. I'm really looking forward to putting it together!

In the meantime, I just finished a Starry Night set I got 2-3 years ago and never put together because of all the time spent on the house rebuild or (after moving back home) because it was still in an unopened box. I picked this set out as a birthday present however many years ago, partly because of the Starry Night theme (I have a LOT of Starry Night "merch") and also because it includes a Van Gogh minifigure with his painting. \o/

What I failed to notice at the time was that it was a mini-brick set. I haven't worked with those before, and the danger of something rebounding off the other pieces (or just falling) is very high. The smallest pieces are extremely hard to find on our Oriental-patterned rug. I didn't lose anything permanently, though the set had a few missing pieces (I improvised) and a LOT of extra pieces. The instructions were all pictures, with the number 1, 2, and 3 being the only non-Japanese (Chinese?) parts, and one of the blues was REALLY hard to make out on the diagrams— I had to get out a flashlight. This was a super-challenging build. :O

Midway through the build:

Three-quarters of the way done:

Final product with mini-artist:

I would recommend this set, except that it's no longer being made. There are other Starry Night sets, but the resulting "pictures" are usually less accurate than this one. Someone did a very creative job designing this! But if you're tempted, there's the original LEGO set (expensive!). And also these three knockoff sets at varying prices (all of which have a mini-painting, and you could add your own made-up mini-figure)! That last set is actually pretty good. All are mini-bricks, though, so be warned.

In other news, I put the coffee table together. That amounted to screwing in the legs, which were in two pieces to accommodate a flat lower section. The biggest challenge? Breaking down all that styrofoam to get it in our garbage can. It'll probably take 2-3 weeks to get rid of it.

comments

I now own this...

2026-02-27T01:33:29Z

In fact, I own two of them! I purchased a random LEGO Harry Potter minifigure from ebay, and it also wound up being this: Professor Sprout with mandrake. How cute is that?

It is, of course, all about the mandrake. Because I love absurdity. AND I just discovered that there is also a Sirius Black minifigure with ball and chain! Ahahahahaha!

After our random winter day last week (53^o), we're now having more springlike weather. A little TOO springlike—Saturday's high is supposed to be 76^o, which is awfully warm for the end of February. It makes me worry that the summer temps will come early, like in March or April. Please, no!

I finished Station Eternity recently, which was a fun read. It's a combination of comedy, mystery, and sci-fi. The main character is a young woman with an uncanny gift for solving murder mysteries, who notices that a LOT of those murders involve people who are somehow connected to her. She pleads with a sentient space station to grant her refuge, so she can get away from humanity and stop triggering more murders. There are only two other humans on the space station with her... until the station decides to invite a human contingent for a visit. More murder ensues!

I also finished T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver, which is kind of a desert-based light fantasy with loose ties to the Snow White fairy tale. The main character is a poison expert, which is unusual. An enjoyable read over all. Someday, I'll get around to reading The Raven and the Reindeer, which I forgot I bought on Kindle at some point. This is good, as our county library still refuses to buy the digital version of it.

This weekend: I'll be building the coffee table, gathering some more items for Goodwill, and I might finish my pseudo-LEGO mini-brick Starry Night set! \o/

comments

German Anti-Trump Opera

2026-02-25T00:59:00Z

You've probably heard of "theater of the absurd." Well, someone has extended that idea into an anti-Trump opera. With Vampires. And other weirdness. All in German:

And yes, I would totally go see that!

comments

And they're gone!

2026-02-24T02:06:12Z

I took the books to the library this weekend, and our bonus room has space in it again! There are a couple of boxes and bags in there with stuff to take to Goodwill (we seem to always have a running box for that), but all the books are gone now. Huzzah!

This was a weekend in which I actually got some things done. In addition to getting those books out, I cleaned up an office chair that I need to sell, and I assembled a couple of end tables I bought from Overstock last week. They were easy to put together, and they look pretty nice. But it took almost as long to get all of the tape off the boxes (for recycling) and break up the styrofoam they shipped with! I really wish styrofoam was recyclable. :(

While working on the end-tables, I started watching Euphoria on Hulu. This was mainly because someone recommended Eric Dane's performance in it (sadly, he passed away this weekend from ALS), and it also has Jacob Elordi. It's a high-school-age drama, and really well-written, though the kids lives are messy. It's full of things you would really hope teenagers aren't doing. It's also much more sexually explicit than I would like, especially given the age of the characters. I realize all the actors are in their 20s, but they're supposed to be kids, so it's kind of skeevy on top of being TMI. But I will say that Jacob Elordi was gorgeous even in his early 20s, and looked much the same as he does now. This isn't always true, especially for men— Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and even Mel Gibson weren't really good-looking until after about age 30. For some, it's needing to lose a little of the baby fat that makes their faces less distinctive. For Gregory Peck, I think most of it was needing to put on about 20 pounds!

We also watched Sinners, which we enjoyed but I wouldn't consider Oscar-worthy— mainly because of the vampires! The period detail was really good, though, and Michael B. Jordan (as twins) lived up to all the reasons I have a weakness for him. :)

Next weekend: the coffee table I also bought last week. \o/

comments

A miracle happened...

2026-02-18T22:31:55Z

I've mentioned HalfshellHusband's book collection before, and how the sheer quantity of books daunts me (in terms of storage or future moving). Well, last week he got to thinking about what might happen if we had to someday move to be closer to the kids, or what I would have to deal with if he passed away. My father, for example, had hundreds of leather-bound classics that my sister is now struggling to find homes for. So, HSH suddenly decided to go through all his books and purge the paperbacks that are easily available on Kindle and any books he honestly will never read again. That means about 50-70 books are on their way to Goodwill or the library!

We had already cleared everything out of the two 6 1/2 foot bookcases we just sold (picked up today), and almost everything we have left fits in the built-in double-bookcase in the sunroom, with a little room left over for our DVDs. That just leaves the CD collection, and he found places for those. This is in addition to the two 6-foot bookcases in the garage that we need to sell. This is a much more manageable number of books! I feel like I can breathe now. Although I bought a replacement bookshelf from Home Depot back in the Fall (with the intent of getting a twin that now seems to be unavailable). I don't think I even need it, and it's never been opened. Wonder if I can return it (months later)?

In TV news, we finished S2 of The Night Manager. What a shocker of an ending! Overall, I was most intrigued by Teddy's character this season, who was cool, volatile, lethal, and vulnerable all at once. Very complex, with a great performance by Diego Calva. It haunts me even now. Not sure when S3 is coming out, but at least it won't be 10 more years...

We are also in the middle of watching Amazon's Heads of State, after resisting for months because it just looked too stupid. It is MUCH better than we expected, when all we really expected was mindless fun. I had thought John Cena was horribly miscast, but he's making it work. Who knew?

comments

That's more like it!

2026-02-13T01:28:55Z

Apparently, I caught a bad night of Olympic Ice Dancing earlier this week. Someone explained that there is a Rhythm Dance segment, which was 90's themed and drove most of the frenetic gesticulating that was jarring to watch. The final program was more like what I was expecting— more couples-style dancing than parallel dancing, and a bigger romantic element. I loved the music Zingas and Kolesnik skated to, as well as their choreography. The Canadian team did a wonderful job, though, and beat them out for the bronze medal. As for Chock and Bates vs. the French team, I preferred the French performance. It combined grace, power, and skill really well. Also, Chock kind of rubs me the wrong way (she comes off as brittle, somehow, making her performance less appealing).

And now there's controversy about the French winning gold, and none of it seems to have anything to do with the actual performances. \o? Both routines seemed flawless, and the artistry is always subjective, so who knows? I would think the lifts and balanced poses (which were very creative in all the routines) would be the hardest to judge, in terms of technical difficulty. Maybe they're just new to me, and there are some established criteria for them? At least we're not in the days of throwing out the Russian judge's scores...

Speaking of dance, we are going to the ballet this weekend! There is a performance of Sleeping Beauty, and the music is too good to pass up. I would have liked to have seen whatever the Dracula ballet was over Halloween weekend in the Fall, but we had to go out of town. I'm hoping this will be good. About 10-12 years ago, we went to an all-Stravinsky program for my birthday, which had the Firebird Suite and The Rite Of Spring. We really enjoyed it! Normally, there is The Nutcracker at Christmas, and then a couple of gala events that are more pop culture, and the galas have never appealed to us. This should be more our style.

On the subject of dreams again, I dreamed last night that we were in a wreck and the insurance company totaled our 4Runner. Boy, would that ever be depressing! I mourned the loss of my first car (an '85 Toyota Tercel), but that was mainly for sentimental reasons. Our 4Runner is 30 years old now, and we still love it. Plus, I really prefer having levers and buttons on the dashboard, and that's almost gone in newer cars. The Prius we lost to the garage fire had its touchscreen die about 7 or 8 years in, and that really reduced the A/C and music functionality. I don't want to go through that again.

Here's hoping the 4Runner will still be with us for a long time to come...

comments

Chunks of Hunks

2026-02-10T22:21:50Z

I watched Another Country again last night, for the first time in about 40 years. Rupert Everett was as gorgeous as ever! Though Colin Firth didn't look like much at that age (despite already having that voice), and Cary Elwes was... really blond. \o? I didn't feel the pangs I used to get when the movie first come out, but it was enjoyable. I also spent far too much time scouring the various crowd scenes trying to spot other actors who later made it big, but found nothing other than the three above.

We've been watching S2 of Night Manager, which improved as soon as Tom Hiddleston shed the fake glasses and began his Con Of Charm. Speaking of voices—his is so silky! I also loved the sexy-dancing with Camilla Morrone and Diego Calva. And the appearance of ( Spoilers ) One more episode to go.

And on another hunky note, Brilliant Minds is currently all about the transformation of Dr. Josh for me. I actually checked IMDB.com early this season to see if the part had been recast, but no. Teddy Sears was an okay-looking guy before, but letting his hair go gray and changing the style turned him into a hottie! I've seen photos of other roles, and this is really the best he's ever looked. I'm not rooting for him to get back together with Wolf, though—I'd like to think Dr. Josh has more sense. Wolf is... work. A lot of work. And I'm not loving the flamboyant nurse they introduced this season. The show has a main character who is gay—was there a complaint about it lacking gay stereotypes? And the new asshole resident is similarly unwelcome...

I'm in the last episode of Orphan Black, and they seem to have wound up the series nicely. I'll miss it and all the sestras, though. I've enjoyed the journey with them all. Five seasons was really helpful for all of the garage-biking I've done since November, too. Now what? I have some potential action/thriller shows in my Netflix list, but most are just 1 or 2 seasons. And I'll be in there most of this week—yesterday was too windy to bike outdoors, and today starts three days of rain. :(

If it weren't for the ads, I would probably watch some of the Winter Olympics in the garage. I caught a little of it late last night. I missed Men's Figure Skating already (as I always seem to), and it looks like Ice Dancing has become Rhythm Skating, which... *sigh*. It seems to mostly now be loud music and gangsta-style dancing. What a change from the romance of Torvill and Dean! Last night also featured a couple of new-to-me sports: free-style skiing (which contains elements of snowboarding) and ski-sprinting. That last one... wow. I've never seen someone try to ski uphill before, and there was a lot of that. Overall, those women were strong. It was quite a workout.

All right, back to work. Carry on! :D

comments

Last night, I dreamed

2026-02-07T03:06:48Z

I was in labor. And not only dreading the progression, but also kicking myself because we gave away our baby-bucket/stroller combo years ago, along with all of our other baby stuff. For perspective, our youngest child is 26. :O

The springlike weather continues here in Sacramento, with highs near 70^o all this week. I've had some great bike rides, and the one on Monday even included a half-mile stretch of the bike path that smelled like pot stickers and their dipping oil. Mmmmm!

TV-wise, I started a one-season show last night called Chasing Shadows (with Alex Kingston and her fabulous hair). I made myself go to bed in the middle of episode 4. It's far more captivating than I anticipated.

Earlier this week, I watched Dance With A Stranger for the Rupert Everett experience. It was one of his early movies, in which he played a petulant cad (boo) while looking absolutely gorgeous. Wow. The sound quality, though-- this was Amazon with ads, and it was like having an industrial fan or airplane going in the background.

Book-wise, I finished the last of the T.L. Huchu YA magician series that centers on a young ghost-talker named Ropa Moyo. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, even as I sometimes got frustrated with Ropa for making impulsive decisions (the character ages from 14-16 during the series). Huchu's cycle is set in near-future dystopian Edinburgh, and rich with humor and slang. Dosh. Cheddar. Knapf. And those were some of the ones where I didn't Google the terms.

I also read Daniel H. Wilson's Hole In The Sky. Not as good as his Robopocalypse series, but it has his usual great mixture of sci-fi, horror, and soulfulness. It looks like The Clockwork Dynasty is the only remaining e-book I haven't already read, but I'll wait on it. Instead, I put a hold on Joe Hill's King Sorrow.

On tap for this weekend: more yard work, and posting a Craigslist ad for a pair of bookcases we need to get rid of. I want them out of here so I can build their replacements1 And that doesn't even account for the shelves, desk, etc. being stored in the garage. :O

comments

In which LJ is not dead yet...

2026-02-01T20:56:26Z

I was invited to join the_lj_revival, and added a bunch of new LJ friends as a result. If you still have an LJ account and miss livelier days over there, that community is a great place to start!

The warmer, sunny weather continues here (66^oF is the expected high today), so I'll be bicycling this afternoon. But what I probably should be doing is reclaiming a mid-lawn flowerbed from the volunteer grass seeding and an encroachment of moss. The moss in particular has been making inroads in the last 6+ years, and we were gone for 3 of them (while the house was being rebuilt), so it has spread more than ever. Not sure of a good way to remove/kill it. Vinegar water didn't do much. One recommendation is baking soda, though I'm not sure how much the neighboring plants would enjoy that. :O

I recently finished watching Broadchurch on Netflix, and enjoyed it so much that I wish they'd managed more than just 3 seasons! I also watched The Other Wife on Acorn TV, mainly for the cast, and that was a wasted effort which just made me feel sad about Rupert Everett. :(

( More Rupert Everett )

HalfshellHusband and our son and I all watched The Wrecking Crew (with Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, on Amazon Prime), which was stupid fun. It's essentially an action-comedy. One of our son's friends said it reminded him of Liam Neeson's The Ice Road (Netflix), which is a retribution movie with unexpected dark comic touches. If you're looking for free, mindless fun, I recommend both.

And now it's time to pull it together and go biking before the day gets too late and I wind up riding into the sunset.

comments

New to me...

2026-01-28T01:40:28Z

We went up to Portland to visit family last weekend, and found some new things as a result.

1. There is a fragrance called Ghost Trees. I'm undecided on whether I like it, but I love the name!

2. There is an Instagram account called freddieandthebag, which features videos of a black cat (named Mr. Freddie Mercury) accompanied by narration of his "adventures" with Mother, the short man, and various other enemies/frenemies who frequent his yard. It's wonderful.

3. There is a used LEGO store in the Portland area called Yellow Castle Bricks. Oh, heavens! We spent a couple of hours there, pawing through accessories and minifigures and their components. Even though I lost most of our LEGOs as a result of the fire (smoke damage), I still want more— some for speculative reselling purposes, and others... because I have a ridiculous love for tiny things. I want ALL the accessories! The weapons, the dog bones, the teapots and cups, the brooms, the apples, the tennis rackets, the electric guitars, the scissors, and the flasks/goblets. I bought all of those, and a briefcase, a red toolbox, a seahorse, and a rhino head and alien head. Plus a shark and a crocodile. Yessssssssss!

Speaking of LEGOs, the steampunk airship pseudo-LEGO set that I built is no longer available. :( I hesitate to recommend any more sets, lest they sell out at Amazon before the next time I'm eligible to receive gifts! But... a company named INSOON offers several "Book Nook" building sets, which are LEGO-like "scenes" that open up to be a room or close to resemble a wide book. These include a fake Hogwarts set and, get this, a dinosaur museum set! Whoo!

No idea where I would store all the things I want, but I DO long for them. :O

comments