pameladean | Reading

My day was overwhelmingly composed of phone calls and the rest of my week is doctor-intensive, but the mail brought me the original felt-tip-and-acrylic painting which

moon_custafer had done earlier this month of the Morris Dancers at their local May Day. It arrived safely from Canada. Friends who make art are the best.

Current Music: Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, "The Greatham Calling On Song"

drfizzsmedicalkit posting in

little_details

Heya ! God it's been a WHILE since I've posted here LOL ! But I've been thinking on something I haven't gotten a straight answer for :

I have an OC , and a part of their backstory involves pretty much being locked inside their house for 4 years at 17 by their dad at an attempt to keep them away from publicity after their mother killed someone .

To be more specific on their conditions :

- They're not allowed outside unless it's absolutely necessary (example , to see a doctor)

- They have one specific friend who is allowed to come over at any time , and they do message on social media via an anonymous account.

- They do home schooling , to explain education stuff .

They finally move out and go outside more when they're 22 , aka 5 years later .

I know that a (likely permanent) damaged immune system would be one of the negative effects due to lack of vitamin D and exercise , but what else could be a side effect , physically , socially AND mentally ? And how could it be for them when actually going outside for the first time again ? I haven't gotten lots of resources for it ..

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260518.html

Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 looks to be unraveling like a ball of cosmic

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260518.html

julian

This is my last two weeks, basically, though there's also work involved around the edges.

The thing is, my mom had been trundling along as kind-of there in the mornings and pretty much not in the afternoon, but still wanting to take walks (And get lost and stand in the middle of the street, or try and get into other people's houses; this part had long since become a concern to me but my father seemed to be blasé and unworried, but I've already ranted about that here, so: rar.)

The taking-walks-and-being-stable-on-her-feet part basically ended last week, around the same time when my dad was finally like, "Actually, she isn't safe at home," and we finally got to looking at assisted living.

I scheduled two places, one for my brother to look at and one for me to look at; my brother looked at a (good) place in Dedham, Charter, and I looked at it just after him, and then the next day, my mom had this thing during dinner with my dad where she tried to sit down on a chair and kind of missed most of it, almost sat, but then slid onto the floor. This may or may not be where she busted two lower left ribs; mind you, she has fallen before, and has been having back pain for awhile, so that is a Mystery, but: probably.

Anyway, so: on floor. Could not get up. My dad, who has early stage Parkinson's himself, could not help her up.

( Cut for length and irritation factor. )

So we still don't know if Charter will take her, but I bet they will. (10 cents, but it's still a bet.) Also, the In Theory Good Hospital, for locals, is Faulkner. (But they're all Beth Israel Deaconess anyway so it hardly matters.)

And now, I will do some work, for work.

firecat

A team of narrators did an impeccable podfic of one of my stories! It’s a crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Podfic] Dreamer in the Dark by celli_pods, contributor-sky (deepestbluesky), KtInSunshine, peasina, semperfiona_podfic (semperfiona), sisi_rambles, vexbatch pods (vexbatch), with (poemreads), xia_pods

julian

I have a lot to say about my mother's situation but I kind of feel I should post about good news, too, so: hey, I got a new-to-me car! (2022 Kia Niro.) It's getting amazingly good gas mileage (like, 56 MPG on average), which is good given the current situation.

It's bigger than I'm used to, though it is Not An SUV. Even so, it has more cargo space than the Prius, and it has both good rear vision and a lot more bells and whistles than I'm used to. F'rex, positively, it alerts if people are walking behind you; less positively, it dings if I go out of the lane line without signaling, but I'm trying to see it as, I should use my turn signals more anyway.

It also overheated last weekend while it was being humid out, but I fiddled with the caps to the radiator and that *appears* to have been the trouble, which is weird but there you go, and it has given me no angst since, and, I like it.

It's blue! (But a different blue than my Fit.)

Blue:

mrissa

Lois McMaster Bujold, Dark Sight Dare. Kindle. This is a very nice novella. It is not twisty, it is not startling, it is a very kind story about people doing their best with difficult circumstances. I don't think it's the best place to begin the series, but it's a pleasant addition thereto.

William Dalrymple, Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42. Kindle. It's a really useful and thoughtful book, but what it is not is uplifting. Great Game my arse. Anyway it's still worth knowing this stuff, it affects the modern world and remains interesting.

Sylviane A. Diouf, Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons. Oh this was so good. Oh my goodness, this was so good. Again not with the uplifting, except that in some ways it was, that people's determination to free themselves and their families was actually pretty wonderful, and hearing the details of how they did it--this should be taught in more schools all over North America, this was absolutely great. Some people fled completely naked! They just got out, and reading about their communities and lives was really neat.

Paul Farmer, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Kindle. I was on vacation! I'm so much fun to take on vacation! This is a book about the early AIDS epidemic in Haiti and featuring Haitians abroad, and it does actual math and science about how the Haitian people were far, far more sinned against than sinning here. Not fun times but useful to know--and Farmer wrote a new preface about dealing with new pandemics, alas that he should have to.

Margaret Frazer, Shakespeare's Mousetrap. Kindle. The supposed secret history of Titus Andronicus and its role in (fictional) actual murder; I think this is my least favorite of her shorts, and probably I should just stop reading them, completeness is not an unmixed virtue.

Sarah Gristwood, Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses. Kindle. Queens and princesses and what they did and where they went, not enough breadth in my opinion but still better than nothing.

Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move. Kindle. This is a book from about ten years ago, and it's heartbreaking how real and deadly these problems already were then, and how much worse now.

W.F. Kirby, The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country. Kindle. You can probably tell from the way this is titled that it is a quite old book. It maddeningly is not the Kalevipoeg but rather a sort of summary of the Kalevipoeg. Kirby blithely informs us that he has omitted many irrelevant passages, some of which might have been of great interest to me, but this is very much a beggars/choosers situation. It exists, I could read this much at least, welp.

E.C.R. Lorac, Murder in Vienna. Kindle. Golden Age puzzle-type mystery. I did not bond with any of the characters, but it rattled along reasonably well and I will keep reading this author.

Casey McQuiston, The Pairing. Kindle. I continue to explore the boundaries of what romance I might like, and the answer here is: eh. It was briskly written, it was amusing, it was fine on a train...and I continued to want the character relationships with other people to matter.

Linda Proud, Pallas and the Centaur. Kindle. Second book in her "Botticelli trilogy," historical fiction set during the Italian Renaissance. This is mostly not fantasy (no centaurs were harmed in the making of this book) except for the bit where someone might be possessed by a deity from antiquity. I think it will work better if you've read the first one, so you know what she's doing with her fictional central characters in the middle of all the real historical figures.

Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France. I didn't set out to have a slavery theme in the nonfiction reading in this fortnight, but I found this in the Museum of Archaeology and History in Montreal and knew I wouldn't find it again readily. It was really good at nuance and variation in ways that were extremely informative.

D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married. Kindle. The second in its very light series, and don't start with this one; you'll enjoy the central characters more if you have the perspective on where they started. Short. Fun.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Monday Starts on Saturday. Kindle. A reread technicality: this is a very different, and much better, translation than the one I read a few decades ago. I feel like this is particularly crucial for speculative satire. Luckily for me, this edition translates the title as "starts" whereas the other translates it as "begins," so it will be easy to keep track of which one I want. Surreal and funny.

Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys. Kindle. I read this because I trust Claire Tomalin as a biographer, not because I have a particularly keen interest in Pepys, and it did not disappoint. Her sense of context, her ability to be thoughtfully positive where possible without losing track of her subject's flaws--she's one of the best in the business, and this is an interesting book even if you're not completely fascinated with Pepys.

Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne. Kindle. The ending spelled itself out in such clear detail from the outset that I can't really say it's one of my favorite Trollopes, but it's not one of my least favorites either, as he wasn't notably bigoted in any particular direction--and in fact he seemed to be arguing for acceptance of "illegitimate" children as full members of society. It was a reasonable thing to read on a plane.

Vanessa Walters, The Lagos Wife. A thriller set in Nigeria among the foreign-born wives of wealthy Nigerians. While the twist ending wasn't my favorite, the multiplicity of cultural perspectives was exquisitely well-done and nuanced. I'll keep an eye out for anything else Walters chooses to do.

redbird

When my doctor told me to get a mammogram, she warned me they were scheduling months in advance. Instead, when I logged on to MyChart yesterday, it offered a lot of appointments in the next few days, including several this afternoon at a nearby location.

I had nothing else planned for this afternoon, so I made an appointment for this afternoon, a convenient trolley ride from home. Unfortunately, it didn't warn me that I would have to climb a couple of flights of stairs, because the building elevator has been out of service since May 4. The mammogram itself was uncomfortable, but not as bad as I had expected. I think the main difference is that it was quicker than last time, which may be because they were using better machinery than the last few times.

oursin

Take five books off your bookshelf: I took 5 fairly random books from the various piles around the room I am in.

First sentence from Book no 1: 'Two women had arranged to have tea together, in the flat of one of them which was in a rather distant and not so fashionable quarter of the Left Bank'.

Last sentence from page 50 of Book no 2 -- last sentence on page fifty: 'Eleanor wrote that their great difficulty would be in managing their first break with their friends'.

Second sentence on page 100 of Book no 3: 'Canfield was polite, softening his rejection by saying if Sybille were to write a full-length novel one day he would be pleased to read it'.

Next to the last sentence on p 150 of book no 4: 'Because it's true, you know--he's not like any of them, he's completely alien to that whole bright, corrupt court'.

Final sentence of book 5: 'We have many more evenings before us if we want them'.

Make these sentences into a paragraph:

Two women had arranged to have tea together, in the flat of one of them which was in a rather distant and not so fashionable quarter of the Left Bank. Eleanor wrote that their great difficulty would be in managing their first break with their friends. Canfield was polite, softening his rejection by saying if Sybille were to write a full-length novel one day he would be pleased to read it. Because it's true, you know--he's not like any of them, he's completely alien to that whole bright, corrupt court. We have many more evenings before us if we want them.

I don't think any rearrangement would make that make any more sense

1: Beyond This Limit: Selected Shorter Fiction of Naomi Mitchison (I skipped the editorial introduction.)
2. Mary Gordon, Chase of the Wild Goose (about the Ladies of Llangollen).
3. Selina Hastings, Sybille Bedford: an appetite for life
4. Pamela Dean, Tam Lin
4. Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence.

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-hepworth-wakefield

A small former mining town which is only gradually recovering from the total loss of its coal mining industry is hardly the place to expect, what can only be described as, a world class museum.

However, Barbara Hepworth was a world renowned artist, known mainly for her abstract sculptures. The museum named in her honour and containing a great deal of her work opened in the town of her birth in 2011. She was was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England in 1903 and educated at the Leeds School of Art alongside her great friend Henry Moore. Her most famous work is located outside the United Nations building in New York which she created as a memorial to the former Secretary General, Dag Hammarsskjöld who was also a close friend of hers. She is best known as the sculptor who introduced the pierced form to her abstract works, a feature which was later adopted by Henry Moore and who sometimes, wrongly, gets the credit.

The building was designed by David Chipperfield. It is a great example of modern architecture which contrast very well with a group of magnificent former industrial buildings in brick (now including many work spaces for creatives) which are just at the southern boundary of the museum. The trapezoid forms of the concrete structure which forms the museum "dips its feet" on one side into the River Calder, directly alongside a very attractive weir and directly across the road from the famous Chantry Chapel.

The collection includes work from a range of artists including LS Lowry . Henry Moore, Ronald Moody and David Hockney. There is also much space for regularly changing temporary exhibitions (including rotation of the City's art collection) and a small sculpture garden outside.

The institution is deliberately described here as a museum rather than a gallery since great effort is made to enlighten the visitor as to the processes used in creating the art.

This museum is well worth the visit, particularly if you also take in the Chantry Bridge. Some seven miles to the southwest is the Yorkshire Sculpture park which is an outdoor space with many, much larger modern sculptures. If you are travelling by car it is easy to incorporate a visit here with a trip to the Hepworth.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-hepworth-wakefield

ysabetwordsmith posting in

birdfeeding

Today is cloudy, mild, and wet. It has varied between light rain, pouring rain, and "the air is water" outside. We need the rain, though.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen any.

EDIT 5/18/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder, and a few small birds.

EDIT 5/18/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 5/18/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

It's still drizzling on and off.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

james_davis_nicoll

This all-new Runehammer EZD6 Bundle presents EZD6, the tabletop roleplaying game of fast-moving mayhem from "DM Scotty" McFarland (TheDMsCraft on YouTube) and Runehammer Games (Index Card RPG).

Bundle of Holding: Runehammer EZD6

ribirdnerd posting in

birdfeeding

Monday 5/18

We are having some warm weather the past few days.

I heard an Eastern Phoebe and saw a pair of Baltimore Orioles.

We have some Blue Jays, House Sparrows and Wild Turkeys hanging around too.

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/untuned-bell

In 2000, Oslo was preparing for its millennium celebrations. During renovations of the City Hall (Rådhuset), it was discovered that one of the 49 bells was out of tune. The bell was promptly removed, and the original was placed in storage.

Twenty years later, the contemporary artist A K Dolven brought the bell back into public view. The 1.4 ton bell was strung on a 30 m cable at Honnørbrygga in front of Rådhuset, facing its original location. Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin wrote a song to mark the occasion; in it, the bells at Rådhuset gradually start communicating with the out-of-tune bell until they once again play together.

The location is highly symbolic, being the exact spot where King Haakon 7 returned to Norway after several years of exile during WWII. Today, anyone can play the bell by stepping on a guitar pedal which is mounted on the floor next to one of the pillars. Although the bell is out of tune, when played alone it has a rather beautiful sound which can be heard across the city.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/untuned-bell

athenais

It was really a dream experience, not quite once in a lifetime, but such a pleasure to finally see them with my own eyes and hear their real voices. Yes, it was the most people I've ever been to a concert with, but Stanford knows how to handle big crowds and a K-pop audience is not rowdy. Loud as absolute fuck, though! I wore my Loops ear plugs which are calibrated for a concert, but I had to take them out a few times for my favorite songs so I could hear them unfiltered.

Because the 360 stage is so large I couldn't really see the group well with my own eyes. I could certainly see them dancing and moving around, but for their expressions I had to rely on the gigantic screens. That's kind of how it is for most of the groups I go to. Big group, big stage, big crowd, yet a real sense of intimacy at times. They talk to us between songs and not only to request that we make some noise. I am always amazed at how comfortable someone can be talking to tens of thousands of people. I have terrible stage fright myself.

The weather was beautiful and there were really cool minimalist fireworks throughout the show, spiraling directly over the stage. The confetti was swirling and fluttering everywhere because it was windy; normally it doesn't get much beyond the first ten rows. I made 25 bags of freebies and handed them out to people who were so excited to get them. I got 4 in return, which is far less than I expected and I really should know better. But all were handmade with love and I will never say no to joy.

John said he enjoyed the show. He's been listening to BTS music all week so was familiar with the recent album. He's now been to both the smallest and the largest shows I've been to. He was teased by a colleague that he must love his wife very much to go to this, but that's nonsense. He likes music and he likes new experiences. I've been to a million volleyball games that I didn't have to go to because we enjoy doing things together. But also, the audience was about 25% male. Plenty of men enjoy K-pop.

I'll see BTS again in September in LA and I'm looking forward to that, not least because it makes me feel fancy to fly into town somewhere for a specific exhibit or concert and then go home the next day.

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sims-chapel

Sims' Chapel

Aaron Sims followed the footsteps of fellow Scotsman David Livingstone by becoming a missionary doctor working in Africa. Unlike Livingstone, in 1882 Sims head instead to the Congo under the employ of the Livingstone Inland Mission (LIM). After working at another station in Congo for a small amount of time, the LIM sent Sims to begin a new mission in Léopoldville, itself established only a year before by Henry Morton Stanley. In order to prevent British missionary groups from establishing too much influence in the personal colony he was building, the Belgian King Leopold II mandated that these missions had to stay close to the colony’s own bases.

By 1884 the LIM was unable to support the site, and instead turned it (and the employ of Dr. Sims) over to the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU). Eager to replace wooden structures vulnerable to termites with something more permanent, in 1891 Sims worked with local students on brick production allowing construction on the chapel to start by the end of that year. The new chapel could accommodate 50 Congolese church members. Sims worked in Congo for another three decades, dying in 1922.

In the subsequent 135 years since the chapel was built the city has grown and, at independence, was renamed Kinshasa. With the center of the city having move eastward, Sims’ Chapel now finds itself still in the city but in the quieter commune of Ngaliema. Still hosting worshippers, the chapel remains little changed from when it was built and, having survived all these years, has become the oldest permanent structure still standing in the city.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sims-chapel

lsanderson

Minnesota deploys national guard to help fight wildfires in northern region
Tim Walz, the state’s governor, calls blazes ‘unpredictable and fast-moving’ as dry, windy weather fuels them
Marina Dunbar
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/17/minnesota-national-guard-wildfires

HCMC bailout fine print, the bonding bill, and a last push to police the immigration police: What the Minnesota Legislature accomplished in its final hours
Bills were not printed in time for public debate. But legislative leaders point to achievements on hospitals, bonding, and fighting fraud.
by Matthew Blake
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2026/05/hcmc-bailout-fine-print-the-bonding-bill-and-a-last-push-to-police-the-immigration-police-what-the-minnesota-legislature-accomplished-in-its-final-hours/ ( Read more... )

james_davis_nicoll

Here's to digging for treasure in the endless shelves of bookstores past and present…

Let’s Talk About Our Favorite Used Bookstores

sovay

Hestia sniffed my hands all over, but after some proprietary headbutting allowed herself to be petted with insistent slinks of her back and escalating purr. I had met two strange cats this evening at

skygiants and

genarti's.

We did not actually watch one of the several productions of As You Like It in

skygiants' possession, the notional goal of the hangout. We ate a bounty of deli from Mamaleh's—the bagel with chopped liver was successfully foraged despite the ravages of commencement weekend—and got as far as watching a 26-minute stop-motion Twelfth Night with a voice cast to die for, which turned out to be one of the Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992–94) adapted by Leon Garfield which I had been recommended last month. Then we were diverted by talking about books mostly of our childhoods and in the process I learned that prior to launching his nowadays much more famous career as a Nesbit-inspired children's fantasist, Edward Eager was a dramatist and lyricist responsible among other musical comedies for the Offenbach-in-English To Hell with Orpheus. It never seems to have made it to Broadway, but was one-shot premiered in 1953 by the irresistibly named St. John Terrell's Music Circus of Lambertville, NJ. I am captivated by this fact. I was also captivated by the strange cats, although Mina jinked out of any room I entered until very near the end of the evening, when she permitted me to stroke her very soft tuxedo-black head for about ten seconds before she headed for the refuge of the bedroom closet. So long as I didn't tower over him, Mr. Dash was more than content for me to attend to the covert white splash of his belly and his plush void back, although he seemed disappointed that leading me through the kitchen with a succession of soulful looks did not produce my feeding him. I had an out-of-season latke. It was an incredibly nice time.

genarti had made me a cup with the Uffington White Horse.