fiercelydreamed

1. It's the weekend!

2. We've been having another heatwave, but I think today was the peak. Tomorrow's supposed to be pretty hot, too, but then cooling off again from Sunday.

3. Another cat enjoying the new lounger.

torachan

Recently Finished
The Murder at World's End
The first book in a new historical murder mystery series. I liked this one a lot. A young male servant teams up with an eccentric upper class older woman to solve mysteries. Looking forward to the next one. I listened to this as an audio book and enjoyed the narrator a lot, too.

The Decagon House Murders
This is the first in the House Murders series, but the third I've read in novel form, as I had originally read this one as a manga. It's been a while since I've read the manga, though, so I thought I'd check out the novel as well. The manga seems to have stuck fairly close to the novel except for two big changes: the MC who doesn't go to the island with the others is a girl in the manga, but was male in the original, and the way the girl whose death triggers the revenge killings died is totally different in the manga. I can see why they'd change the gender of the one character, since it is otherwise all guys except two minor female characters who both die fairly early on, but I am baffled as to why they changed the death.

Boxers & Saints
Two volume graphic novel series about the Boxer Rebellion, a period in history about which I knew nothing at all previously (I had only vaguely heard the term and did not even realize it happened in China). Very interesting.

Yes, I'm Hot in This: The Hilarious Truth about Life in a Hijab
Collection of (I assume) web comics about life as a hijabi woman in the US. I enjoyed it, but collected all together the comics were often repetitive in a way that wouldn't feel as obvious if read spread out as a web comic.

Kinou Nani Tabeta? vol. 25

Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta vol. 4

torachan

1. I had another nice WFH day today. I had a web meeting at 4pm, and that would have been a web meeting even if I'd gone in, so no reason to go. Now that I'm not doing stuff that really heavily relies on accessing our system which can only be accessed from home by remoting into a PC at the store, it's nice to be able to work from home at least a couple days a week.

2. I went to the tattoo place today for my appointment but ended up not getting any work done today. She looked at my leg and said it's healing well, but the skin is still not fully back to normal, so we should wait to do the touch up. I told her I'd be in Japan for the first half of April, so we agreed to see how it's looking when I get back and do it then. The tattoo place is only about 15-20 minutes away (and today was good traffic both ways) so it was no bother going in, and I was glad to have her look at it. I told her I'm really happy with it, even how it is now. It really only has a few spots that need to be touched up. On the bottom front there's a bit where the marker she used to draw the lines still shows, and on the back there are a few bits where skin shows in between the color bands. But all of that is only noticeable when you look close, so I'm fine with waiting until after our trip.

3. We had two beat up cardboard cat scratcher/loungers that we replaced with the new wood/sisal ones, and one we just put in the recycling, but the other one we put out for Tuxie to see how he'd like it and he is a big fan. It can't be used for scratching anymore, but he loves it as a lounger and has been using it every day.

celli

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kuwdora

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settiai

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Current Mood: accomplished

torachan

1. I had a nice WFH day today. One meeting scheduled for late morning, but it was a web meeting anyway, so why go in to the office just for that? Tomorrow I'll be working from home, too, because I have my tattoo touch-up appointment mid-morning and while I'm sure the bandage situation won't be as dire as the first go-round, I still don't want to have to worry about suddenly needing to change it while I'm at work.

2. The other day Carla took a walk down a street we don't usually go down and discovered a litte cafe we'd never known existed, so today we walked over there for lunch and shared a delicious prosciutto and pear sandwich. It was so good! It also had caramelized onions on it, which didn't sit well for me, unsurprisingly, but I would do it again. They also have various drinks, including a date-based smoothie called a majoon, so I got one of those and it was also super delicious.

3. Molly has also been enjoying the new lounger.

torachan

1. We had burritos for dinner, along with a pineapple tamale we had gotten from the farmers market on Saturday but hadn't eaten yet, and the tamale was so good! It didn't have chunks of pineapple in it, but rather was solid masa that was flavored with pineapple. Definitely would get that again. (The burritos were very good, too, but I got the one I always get from there, so I already knew I would like it.)

2. They've released the menu for the Food and Wine Festival at DCA, which is starting next Friday. There's a lot of tasty looking stuff and we'll miss out on about two weeks of it because we'll be in Japan, so I'm glad we'll have plenty of opportunities to go in March and then once we're back from Japan can pick up any must-tries that we didn't get to yet.

3. Last nigh Chloe was all snuggled up on my bed when I wanted to go to sleep, and sadly not in any way that I could get in bed with her, so I just scooped her up, blankie and all, and set her down on my desk chair. She protested when I moved her, but seemed satisfied with the results. She stayed snuggled up on the chair for a couple hours anyway!

wychwood

Last week was all choir all the time (concert went well, but the Concerts Without A Funny Turn card goes back down to zero, annoyingly) and then I went straight into a weekend of Extreme Socialising because

shreena and

quizcustodet came up for a visit. Friday night I went out with

shreena and A for dinner, delicious food at a Vietnamese restaurant (the marmite-and-peanut-butter-coated cauliflower was especially good!).

Saturday was my birthday treat; the Lego Discovery Centre only lets you in if you have children with you, so

shreena and

quizcustodet donated me their children and bought me a ticket to go with them *g*. I really enjoyed it; there's a mix of rides (and a big soft-play area) and a little 3D film and also a big open area where you can, you know, play with Lego. There were stations for building specific models, stations that were just buckets of Lego for you to play with, a tiny zipline where you could build little machines and see if they could make it the whole way along, a car-building area with test track, etc etc. I spent probably half an hour or so building a tiny house (with contributions from

shreena and their older son J), which was extremely soothing.

And then on Sunday we went to ( Cadbury World )

All-in-all a pretty good weekend, but an inevitably exhausting one. I am now attempting to live a deeply regulated life to try and get back to normal and untrash my sleep cycle, etc etc, so we'll see how that goes...

acari

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torachan

1. Today was mostly a catching up day at work, since I had not only the weekend but the three business trip days last week where I wasn't really spending that much time on my regular work. I am all caught up now, though!

2. I also got my reimbursements submitted for the trip. The hotel and flight were paid through the travel agent who arranged everything, so I don't need reimbursements for those, but there's uber trips and per diems, so I should get reimbursed for those next week.

3. We have a couple cardboard cat loungers that are in pretty bad shape, and rather than get more cardboard ones, Carla ordered some sissel ones and those arrived today. Spritzed them with catnip spray to get the babies interested and so far they seem to like them.

mrkinch

Chris is still away and U is having foot pain so we took a leisurely walk up the road to the Lake and back. The sky was mostly overcast although the sun came out eventually. There was a lot more activity than on my rainy walk last week but we didn't seen great numbers of anything, not even American Robins, and no large flocks of Band-tailed Pigeons flew over. We did see quite a few more Golden-crowned Sparrows than has been usual this Winter. A Belted Kingfisher was rattling overhead as we started, and we saw a Varied Thrush just about where in a good year we've seen multiple birds, Which is interesting. There's something about that piece of the trail. But the best thing was that U heard our first singing Orange-crowned Warbler of the Spring! ( The list: )

The week of rain that was in the forecast that I was looking forward to has dwindled to less than a day. :(

torachan

1. We had a very nice morning at Disneyland today. A little warm (I wore a sweatshirt when we got in and had to take it off about halfway through, so then I had to lug it around the rest of the time, which was annoying) and a little crowded, but we ate a lot of good food and had a good time.

2. Poor Tuxie looks like he got in a scuffle again. Yesterday he came to the door with one eye partially closed and the fur between his eye and ear on that side scraped up. He's looking better today (eye fully open) and unlike some times before where he disappeared for a few days to hunker down, he has been spending his time in our yard as usual, so hopefully he's doing okay. I do wish he wouldn't get in fights. :-/

3. Jasper is just hanging out.

torachan

Today is Anaheim Ducks Day at DCA and I specifically made a reservation for today rather than Saturday (our usual), not because either of us care anything about hockey or the Ducks, but because last year we just happened to be there on that day and had an amazing burrito that they only serve on Ducks Day lol.

( Read more... )

wychwood

( 1. Hogfather - Terry Pratchett ) Pratchett at his best balances the comedy with really meaningful moments, and this is definitely one of those.

( 2. The Book Eaters - Sunyi Dean ) Definitely not my jam.

( 3. Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us - Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman ) Very light, sometimes questionable, but packed full of fun anecdotes (and a surprisingly good examination-in-passing of how scientific research works).

( 4. Ocean - Colin Butfield and David Attenborough ) Not life-changing, but well worth a read.

( 5. Common Goal, 6. Role Model, and 7. The Long Game - Rachel Reid ) I wasn't keen on CG, but I liked the other two a lot - and I'm looking forward to the seventh book coming out later this year! More Ilya and Shane: give it to me.

( 8. The Fifth Form at St Dominic's - Talbot Baines Reed ) Worth a read! But it's not going to shoot up my list of favourite school stories.

( 9. Time to Shine - Rachel Reid ) Not brilliant, but sweet.

( 10. Identity - Nora Roberts ) Mostly you know what you're getting with Roberts! This was very heavy on the wealth porn, but despite all my mockery I did enjoy reading it.

( 11. Persuasion - Jane Austen ) A delightful story as always.

( 12. Strange Pictures - Uketsu ) Short, weird, and interestingly different.

( 13. The Snow Tiger - Desmond Bagley ) This has aged much better than I expected; I was genuinely gripped.

( 14. Swallowdale - Arthur Ransome ) These are just such good books.

( 15. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo ) Interesting to read the original after all the cultural osmosis, but actually I disagree with her quite a lot! I'm not sorry I read it, though.

( 16. Sassinak - Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon ) I did still quite enjoy this, but it was a distinct let-down from my much-better remembered version!

settiai

My debit card was compromised late last week, and I'm waiting for the bank to get all of the charges reversed. I've been able to cover my most urgent bills (the hotel and my storage unit), but I have a few others that are due that I'm still worried about paying. If I can come up with another $100 or so, it would make a huge difference while I wait for the bank to get everything taken care of.

So I'm going to try to sell a few things and hope for the best. 🤞🏻

First, I have a few Nintendo Switch games for sale:

Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)

And then a few TTRPGs that were Christmas presents so they're still in basically like new shape:

Candela Obscura Core Rulebook (example on Amazon)
Daggerheart Core Set (example on Amazon)

If you're not interested but know someone who might be, please point them my way. It would help a lot if I could manage to sell at least one or two things from this list.

For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).

Current Mood: hopeful

celli

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torachan

1. So nice to get back to my routine at home. I tried my best to stick to the things I could while away but it's not the same and it's definitely a source of stress.

2. Carla got some frozen char siu fried rice from Trader Joe's and it's really good. Making fried rice from scratch is an easy meal, but I wouldn't mind keeping a bag of this in the freezer for times we feel like something even easier.

3. A moth got in the house the other day and Carla was able to get some really great pics of Ollie when he was laser focused on the moth.

mrkinch

I had a good morning in the Dotson Family Marsh today, not the morning I'd hoped for as there wasn't any more water in the marsh than in December even though it rained just a few days ago. Almost the first thing I saw was an Osprey with a fish, carrying it aerodynamically in this instance. That was the start of a nice raptor list, not only the White-tailed Kites that I think breed there but a Northern Harrier and a beautiful male American Kestrel that that sat on the bridge railing until a runner went by. After the Osprey I watched the colorful combination of Western Bluebirds and Yellow-rumped Warblers in bushes and on the ground. So many Yellow-rumped Warblers! There were ducks in the large pond by the bridge, fives species of dabbling duck and, unsurprisingly, a couple of Bufflehead. They are so tiny that they don't need much depth for diving. Best bird was nine (9) Wilson's Snipe camouflaged in the weeds beside a shallow pond. I might not have noticed them had not one flushed, prompting me to look at where they'd flushed from, whereupon I saw one, and then another, and another, and another.... Seeing Snipe is often that way, they're hidden in the weeds but once you see one, you keep finding more. ( The list: )

The Red-shouldered Hawk really kept me waiting. Not until I was almost back to the eucalyptus did they start to yell. Such restraint!

torachan

Recently Finished
The Reyes Incident
I think I got this on some sort of ebook sale. It feels like the sort of thing where I'd be like "well, it's free or just a dollar, so I'll take a chance". It wasn't great, though. Interesting premise about a woman who comes to the police station with a story of killer mermaids who ate her friends. The writing just wasn't great, though.

Another Appalachia
Memoir about a queer Indian woman who grew up in West Virginia, where her dad had taken a job as a company doctor for one of the chemical companies there in the 70s. I liked this.

A Skinful of Shadows
Set in the 1600s during the English civil war, the MC is the bastard of a powerful family who all have the ability to see ghosts and host them inside themselves. When her mother dies, she is taken in by the family, who it turns out, like to keep bastards close in the event that they need a ghost host, becaue the currently living members of the family are all host to multiple ghosts each, of dead family members. In some cases the host is too weak and becomes completely taken over by the ghosts. This was a neat premise and an enjoyable read. I have never not liked anything by Francis Hardine that I've read, and this was no exception.

Paying the Land
Non-fiction graphic novel about First Nations people in the Northwest Territories. The author is white, but he spent a lot of time interviewing people and it's basically like an illustrated interview. Very interesting.

Hen na E vol. 4

Ojisama to Neko vol. 16

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fiercelydreamed

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i have so much love and squee and excitement about m

Aurendor D&D: Summary for 2/25 Game

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to exist in the face of suffering and death and somehow still keep singing

I wrote some Heated Rivalry fics

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2/23/2026 Tilden Nature Area

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2026 Disneyland Trip #10 (2/22/26)

january booklog

For Sale: Nintendo Switch games + TTRPG books

BTS omegaverse fic: Opening

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2/21/2026 Pt Pinole - Dotson Family Marsh

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