kenjari | Network

I read these offline and have not commented on most of them yet on AO3, but I wanted to rec them before reveals because they're great.

Don't need to know canon

"17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future" - Jon Bois. I only know this canon from Yuletide stories, and all I really know is that in the very far future, it's a post-scarcity world where everyone is immortal. It reliably produces lovely stories that feel kind of like the more personal/emotional xckd comics. Here is another one.

What Rock Collecting Will Look Like in the Future. Funny, bittersweet, cool worldbuilding; I was surprised and delighted to learn that fordite is real!

James Hoffman's Coffee Videos (Web Series)/Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft/"A Study in Emerald." All you need to know is that a coffee guy reviews coffee online, and this is him reviewing eldritch coffee.

I'm ranking 5 coffees from beyond this world (literally). "I feel a bit as if the coffee tasted me and not the other way around." Hilarious, dead-on coffee notes, dead-on Lovecraft; makes me want to try some of the coffees despite the risk of growing gills or being possessed by Elder Gods.

Tower Wizard - Hourly updates on the life of a wizard who lives in a tower, like "The little cat plays with a leaf. The wizard carefully checks that it's not a dangerous reagent, then returns it to the little cat." His best friend is an ex-paladin, and they eat a lot of interesting food. That's it, that's all you need to know.

Ruins and Roads. A charming original fantasy story, magical and cozy and bittersweet.

True Detective - season one. All you need to know to read this story is that Rust and Marty used to be cops, and they were both seriously injured when they reunited to investigate a weird case that might or might not have supernatural elements.

burned in kind. An outstanding post-series casefic and get-together with a flawless Rust voice, A+ hurt-comfort, and a creepy maybe-supernatural maybe-not case. If you know the series, this is 100% not to be missed; if you don't, you might still really like it as a standalone spooky mystery with excellent characterization.

World War Z - Max Brooks. You just need to know that there are zombies.

little stone. Zombies in 9th century Latvia! An atmospheric story about grief and loss in a time far from us; the protagonist's emotions are raw and vivid. Note: child death.

Need to know canon

House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland

You Live in a Hollow House. Creepy, unsettling horror with an excellent use of color and image embeds.

Meeting Halfway. Creepy, unsettling horror with a touch of sweetness.

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

1. Hello, Carolyn: My stepdaughter won’t allow me to see her children, 6 and 8. I bent over backward for 11 years trying to be supportive and generous to her and then her children, but she acts entitled and ungrateful. Last summer I blew it and told her off. That was the end of my loving relationship with her and the grandkids I adore.

I know it is largely my fault for not speaking up sooner on how I would like to be treated. My husband, a dear, won’t get involved in trying to repair the relationship. Of course, I have apologized to his daughter for being so harsh. Please help.

— Anonymous

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2. DEAR ABBY: My son died of cancer at 33. It was heartbreaking. My daughter-in-law, "Belinda," had grown distant before his death, and although they had a son through artificial insemination, I have almost never seen him. I helped with the weeding in my son's yard, but any time I came, Belinda always had the baby at the park or someplace else.

Now that my son is gone, she won't answer any phone calls or texts. We do have some contact with her family. They have asked her why she won't contact us, and she has no explanation. My theory is that Belinda was uncomfortable sharing our son, and it has transferred to the grandchildren. I say "grandchildren" because she used his sperm to have another child. We found out by accident that a baby girl was born. We were never notified. While I doubt this plays a big part in this, Belinda is bipolar.

As it stands, I no longer make an effort to have a relationship with my grandchildren. They are so young, and I anticipate difficulty in pursuing grandparents' rights because of their ages and their mother's attitude toward us. This is painful, as they are the only part of my son that remains. I feel helpless and have pretty much blocked out the fact that I have grandchildren. Do you have any advice? -- BLOCKED IN OHIO

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3. Dear Annie: My daughter, 31, left home at 19 to attend university. Within weeks, she began dating a boy she'd met through the school's Facebook group. Coming from our cultural background, we weren't comfortable with relationships outside marriage, but after two years, she moved in with him, mostly on her terms. They lived together for six years, bought a house, got a dog, eventually married and, two and a half years later, had my precious granddaughter.

My daughter has always dominated her marriage. Everything has to be on her terms. She's intelligent, determined and successful, but also bossy, pushy and demanding. Outwardly she can be sweet, but behind closed doors she often belittled her husband, and his laid-back nature just let her have her way.

About a year and a half ago, while I was babysitting, my daughter suddenly announced she no longer loved her husband and wanted to separate. I was shocked, but she bulldozed through the conversation and didn't let me say a word. Deep down, I was sure another man was involved. Within six months, the house was sold, assets divided and custody arranged, with little thought to the impact on their young daughter. My daughter was also left with the dog, which my son-in-law wanted no part of anymore.

It's been nearly a year since the split. My daughter appears to have a new partner, though she won't confirm it, only dropping hints to "familiarize" us with this new relationship, while her not-yet-ex-husband has turned to online dating. My granddaughter now splits time between them.

At her father's house, she still sees her other grandparents weekly. But with us, my daughter controls every visit and barely lets us into her life. We went from caring for our granddaughter regularly to limited contact with her and only when my daughter is present. She uses her daughter as leverage, essentially saying to us, "Accept my choices or lose contact."

Being around her feels like walking on eggshells. If I disagree, I'm met with silence, manipulation or explosive behavior. I cry every night, heartbroken over what feels like losing a limb. I feel for my son-in-law, who I believe was wronged, and I ache for my granddaughter, torn between two homes and two very different upbringings. Most of all, I am at a loss for how to move forward.

Deep down, my instincts tell me this new relationship won't last, but I don't know how to stand by my values and still hold on to my only grandchild. How can I stay in her life without surrendering completely to my daughter's demands? -- Heartbroken Grandmother

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4. Dear Prudence,

“Sean” is my son’s former stepson. He married Sean’s mom when Sean was 6, and the same year my granddaughter was born. They got divorced when Sean was 12. Sean is 15 now. My husband and I have bent over backwards trying to stay in touch with Sean after the divorce. We called, texted, and sent gifts. We live out of state, so seeing both our grandchildren is hard.

Sean rarely responds to any calls, and his mother will not even tell us if he likes the gifts we send him, let alone make him say thank you. My son just shrugs and says that is the nature of divorce, and we are setting ourselves up for failure.

This breaks our hearts because we did our best to embrace Sean as our grandchild. He is still in our will with our other grandchildren. My husband thinks that we should stop trying so hard and step back. Sean is old enough to be able to decide if he wants a relationship with us or not. It isn’t like his mom monitors his phone, and Sean is always “busy” when we visit. He thinks we need to rewrite our will and take Sean out. I understand going through another divorce is hard, but Sean has even cut off his cousins, and those boys were as thick as thieves. What should we do? Wait? Push? Stepback? The divorce was mutual, as far as we know.

—Sean Doesn’t Say

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5. Dear Care and Feeding,

I gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago, and my mom has been coming to help for a full day once a week. She’s wonderful with my newborn: She changes diapers like a pro, she is great at getting her to stop crying, and she is respectful of rules that were different from when she had her kids (like the fact that babies are supposed to sleep on their backs, without blankets and stuffed animals in the crib). It’s a dream grandparent setup, really! Except for one thing. My problem is what she brings with her every time she comes over.

Every time Grandma arrives, she’s toting a box of stuff from my childhood. When we first got home from the hospital, she brought toys from when I was a toddler. Last week, it was art from the 4th grade. This week, it was photo albums from when I was a baby, and a bunch of my baby blankets. When I suggested gently that the albums of baby photos would be better off remaining at her house, she said she’d think about it.

Well, an hour later, she said, “I thought about it, and I worry that if I don’t bring them here to you, you’ll never see them again.” Which to me sounded like a threat! But the next thing she said was, “You look so tired, go take a nap,” as she removed my screaming daughter from my arms. So it’s not like I was in a position to argue.

My mother is in good health and lives alone in the four-bedroom house she raised my brother and me in. We live in a very small home with comically limited closet space (thanks, housing crisis). I can’t keep up with all the stuff she brings over. But I very much want to stay on as good of terms as humanly possible with her. So what do I do?

—Boxed In

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thistleingrey

1. In fairness to Professor Mallory, The Origins of the Irish (2013) seems well written, well researched, and well considered. I'm at 19% in epub (notes and other back matter begin at 76%), and though I don't love his handling of Niall as a hypothetical line in the sand for when people in Ireland are "Irish," he carries it through sensibly. Perhaps the IE/PIE project (2025) was merely the wrong shape and scope at the time he tackled it. He was emeritus already by 2013, and Irish has the cadences of prose built up partly from lecture material. If we may turn an archaeologist's lens briefly upon the archaeologist, simple logistics suggest that he wouldn't have had the same chances to workshop the IE/PIE material in updated form before writing up.

That said, I've zero plans to try reading In Search of the Irish Dreamtime (2016), the monograph published between them, which Mallory intended as part two to Irish. One reasonable-sounding book is plenty as rehabilitation.

2. Because the Taproot Video collective will sunset as of 31 Mar 2026, I've acquired a copy of Annie MacHale's Three-Color Pickup For Inkle Weavers (selfpub, 2021). I understand just enough to follow along, though not to implement. MacHale's explanations are straightforward, and she includes clear illustrations of the effects she describes, with examples of variations.

(Taproot's website doesn't admit to its imminent shutdown, which seems irresponsible. They've sent an email to their past customers.)

luzula

Becoming a Supple Leopard: the ultimate guide to resolving pain, preventing injury and optimizing athletic performance by Kelly Starrett (2015)
This book has changed my life. I know I sound like I'm doing a paid promotion or like someone who's joined some weird cult, and I know the book has kind of a silly title, but it's true. My mind is blown.

The thing is, I've had problems with stiffness and muscle ache for years. I've been trying to deal with it by exercise and stretching, but while exercise is obviously good for a whole host of reasons, it doesn't solve the problem of stiffness/muscle ache. And stretching doesn't do much, either. I've also gone to a massage therapist, which does partly help, but it's temporary and also costs a lot of money. And while the guy is much better in the practical application of massage than others I've gone to, and I like him, still I'm reluctant to keep going to him because he does do some things with a large application of force and I doubt his medical judgment (to say the least). In the last few years he has begun to spout conspiracy theories about vaccines and only drinks warm water because, as a man, he needs the yang energy.

Anyway, I figured the stiffness and muscle ache was just middle age and at bottom I just had to suck it up. Turns out THERE ARE EFFECTIVE TOOLS TO ADDRESS THIS THAT I NEVER KNEW ABOUT! Also they're cheap and I can apply them myself! I honestly feel like someone prone to headaches who has just, at the age of 46, discovered the existence of painkillers. But better, because this isn't a drug.

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selenak

Darth Real Life is still on my heels, but:

Katabasis - R.F. Kuang

Two different and both clever and sensitive explorations of what the aftermath of the novel might have been like for Alice and Peter:

The Next Step

The Raven's Paradox

The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle

In that clear unpeopled space: the Unicorn's long way to her forest. Has the poetry, the beauty and the character growth of the book.

Lord of the Flies - Willliam Golding

I Remember (Don't Worry) : in which Ralph encounters Jack years post novel. Disturbing in the way the book is, yet with some glimpse of hope.

Penny Dreadful

mimics the lampllight's struggle with the dawn: After a night of victory, Vanessa and Hecate, separately, search for their footing. Missing scene from the second season's finale, with both women and Malcolm expertly drawn.

The Radiant Emperor Series - Shelley Parker-Chan

The Calligraphy of Disgrace: in which we get another take on these novels' entertainingly screwed up soulmates relationship, with an AU twist.

Frederician Historical Fiction

Five times Amalie saw Luise, and one time Luisa saw Amalie: in which the "Five Things" format is expertly used to portray the relationship between the Melanie Wilkes of the Hohenzollern court and her sharp-tongued sister-in-law.

Courting the Chamberlain : in which we find out how Frederick the Great's lover got married to the resourceful Caroline Daum.

The Ring of the Nibelung - Wagner

Loyalty only to me: Hagen learns many lessons from his father over the years.

Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

Again two different takes on a novel's aftermath, the first focused on Magnus, the other on Avi, which also doubles a great take on his development across several timelines.

Some Desperate Hope

Salvation from falling into the sea of misguidances

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

summersgate

The Entity yesterday afternoon, through a dirty window. The snow had just started. We have about 2 to 3 inches of it now. The previous rain had melted all the snow and most of the ice on the driveway. It's good that we got a fresh start.

Bun, my first amigurumi. He looks a bit haunted. I (obviously!) need to work on better eyes (and noses, and mouths). Bun's eyes just kept getting bigger and bigger. Dave says it looks like he's just been to the eye doctor and got his eyes dilated. I like the idea of using plastic safety eyes (simple and they look good) but I want to make these dolls for a baby so I need to work out a good way to sew the features instead.

I decided to get more organized and got a little white board to put on the fridge to remind me of stuff I could (should) be doing. I usually write my plans for the day in my paper journal in the morning but then after I leave my room I forget. I want to forget. Some of these things I don't want to do at all. But at some point I must do them. The only thing on this list that I'm drawn to do is make a second amigurumi and knowing me that's probably what I'll do. I'm very lazy about phone calls and dealing with computer bill stuff. I used to pay bills by mail. I got the bill in the mail and I paid it with a check. Easy and simple. But two of the above bills I made the mistake of paying online and now all the bills for those places are coming to me online. Which wouldn't be bad except somehow now it won't let me log into those places anymore so I can't pay those bills! I guess I'll need to deal with making a new password, or some such thing. Blaa. And my printer won't communicate with my laptop or phone. It's been non-communicating for a couple months now. I will have to delve into the internet to find the solution. Another blaa.

IMG_20251224_115456528[1].jpg

Looking through my phone and found this - a picture from last week of ice covering a puddle of water that was in a grassy spot. I liked how there were bubbles of air trapped under the ice.

cimorene

People really watch Benoit Blanc movies without having ever encountered any detective fiction other than Sherlock Holmes and feel fully qualified to comment on the connections that they think they've made.

Remember the terrible articles in the late 90s that repetitively and confidently asserted that Rowling had invented YA fantasy, or low fantasy, because they didn't bother to check a single library or bookstore?

dailybunny_feed

Posted by Daily Bunny

https://dailybunny.org/posts/2025/12/30/if-youve-ever-wondered-what-bunnies-get-up-to-when-their-humans-are-away

Thanks, Bonnie, Mike, and bunny Gunner Bunner!

https://dailybunny.org/posts/2025/12/30/if-youve-ever-wondered-what-bunnies-get-up-to-when-their-humans-are-away

poliphilo

I said, "This week is sometimes called "Twixtmas"

And Judy said she'd seen it called "Taint week because 't'aint Christmas and 't'ain't New Year. There is," she added, "another connotation."

Well, I have to know these things so I looked it up and found taint is a slang term for the perineum- which ain't the genitals and ain't the anus. Is this in common usage or am I not alone in having had it pass me by?

Origin of the term? Uncertain, but probably US of A, mid 20th century.

Actually I've learned two things, because if you'd asked me before today where the perineum was I wouldn't have had a clue.

chestnut_pod

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: City Hall - Vienna Teng

sineala

So everyone in fandom has become obsessed with the gay hockey show, and

lysimache and I watched it a couple days ago. Neither of us care about hockey (I think we are both hoping that fandom decides to care about baseball, though this seems unlikely -- but, hey, it's 42 days until pitchers and catchers report) but we do like gay things a lot.

It was nice? I mean, it's not going to be my new fandom, but I'm not sorry I watched it. I did nearly give up after the first two episodes for narrative reasons that I will explain below.

( Spoilers )

It's only six episodes, so... you might as well watch it if you like gay shows, I guess? It's not bad.

I somehow own the first book. I am not sure yet if I will read it.

Current Mood: okay

osprey_archer

And Picture Book Advent draws gently to a close. A note for my future self: although traditionally Advent ends on December 24, I think it would be nice to have a final picture book for the morning of Christmas. (My sister-in-law’s large extended family does a BIG Christmas, so we’ve simply ceded Christmas Day to them and have our own little family Christmas later on, which leaves Christmas morning open.)

Because of the way the dates of Advent fell, I had only two books left to review. First, The Wee Christmas Cabin at Carn-na-ween, by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Max Grafe, a picture book version of a story I first read in Sawyer’s story collection The Long Christmas. After a lifetime helping out in one cabin after another, with never a home of her own, old Oona is at last driven from her final house on Christmas Eve… only for the Good Folk to build her a house, and grant her wish that every white Christmas hence, the hungry and the lonely will be able to find her home for succor.

A lovely story. Another solid example from Sawyer that the spirit of Christmas is “generosity” and not “copious evergreens.”

And second, The Christmas Sweater, Jan Brett’s new Christmas book this year! Theo’s Yiayia knitted an extremely gaudy Christmas sweater for his dignified pug Ari. Hoping to win Ari over to the cozy warm sweater, Theo takes her for a snowshoe in the woods… only for a fresh fall of snow to obliterate his tracks! But fortunately, Ari(adne)’s sweater caught on a twig near the edge of the woods, so they can follow the unraveled yarn back home.

From the dedication, it looks like one of Brett’s children married into a Greek family, and this book is an homage to that family connection. I particularly enjoyed Ari’s expressive face, and indeed all the dogs running around in the snow in this book.

caramarie

So I was going along, ( and now I am on the Romance Route )

dewline

Seems to have fizzled out by morning. Overnight winds tonight are bringing the chills back, though.

I wish I had more to say right now.

Current Mood: lethargic

whimsyful

Once a Villain, by Vanessa Len

The third and final volume in the YA time travel urban fantasy Monsters trilogy, this definitely cannot be read without the previous two installments.

Continuing right where Never a Hero left off, the book starts off with main antagonist and Joan’s half-sister Eleanor having finally succeeded in creating a world where monsters rule over humans and she reigns over all, and the plot revolves around Joan and the othes desperately trying to find a way to undo this and return to the world they know.

First of all, I have to talk about that resolution to the love triangle—

major ending spoilers

I had suspicions from the structure of the earlier two books (ex. the division of page-time between the two male love interests) that Len might be going for a poly/throuple ending, but I wasn’t sure if she had the guts to go for it in a mainstream YA series. I’m very pleased to report that she did, in fact, have the guts to go for it! Even though generally the soulmate/predestined trope is not a romance trope I’m fond of, and having the predestined couple turn out to be actually be a predestined throuple all along only slightly mitigates my indifference, but otherwise I really liked how this played out. One of my worries was how she was going to flesh out the Nick/Aaron side of the throuple, but I thought Len managed to concisely convey the sense of a deep, intense relationship between the two in an alternate timeline, enough that I could buy the current versions working out—though I could have read an entire book about about gladiator!Nick and Scarlet Pimpernel!Aaron (hopefully the fanfic writers will tackle this).

The worldbuilding continues to be one of the most intriguing parts of this series, and in this installment I really liked the depiction of a dystopian alternate world where humans and part-humans were basically slaves. The time-travel continues to run on vibes and Doctor Who-esque rules, but I didn’t mind since we got some cool action sequences and juicy character interactions (in particular, I loved every instance where a character has to interact with a different timeline’s version of someone they cared about) out of it.

As for weaknesses, I thought Joan was a pretty reactive heroine in this book, and it did sometimes feel like she’s going along with the requirements of the plot instead of having a distinctive personality of her own that actively drives the plot forward. I also found the epilogue/ending to be a bit too unbelievably happy in terms how easily all the conflict between human and monster society were resolved—I would have preferred if it ended more on a hopeful work-in-progress instead. And as with the previous two books, I felt like the prose could have been prettier on a sentence-by-sentence level.

But overall, I quite enjoyed this trilogy, and thought Len explored some pretty cool ideas even if she didn’t 100% stick the landing. I’m definitely looking forward to her future works!

Goodbye, My Princess by Fei Wo Si Cun (trans. Tianshu)

A bit of an odd duck of a book. Translated Chinese webnovels have been steadily growing in popularity in the Anglosphere, but most of these are danmei (M/M). I’ve seen this book marketed as YA het fantasy romance, despite 1) covering some pretty mature topics (liked forced abortion), 2) there being exactly one fantastical element in the setting—a magical amnesia-granting river—and is otherwise full on historical fiction, and 3) having an infamous tragic ending, which would preclude this from being considered a romance by Western genre conventions. What this really is, is a tragic romance, and an excellent example of the genre.

mild spoilers under the cut

The plot: Xiaofeng is a cheerful, naive young princess from the desert kingdom of Xiliang who has been in a loveless arranged marriage with Li Chengyin, the crown prince of the Li empire, for the last three years. It has not been a happy union—Li Chengyin alternately fights with Xiaofeng or ignores her in favor of his preferred noble consort, and Xiaofeng mainly copes with the stifling nature of court life by crossdressing and sneaking out of the palace to roam the city with her faithful maid/bodyguard A’du. Then one day she encounters a stranger who claims to be her lost love from a life Xiaofeng can no longer remember. As Xiaofeng tries to piece together what had happened in the past, she and her husband finally start growing closer, but what she doesn’t realize is how truly brutal the royal court is, and that some memories are better left forgotten.

The entire main story is told entirely from Xiaofeng’s first person narration, which was a very effective and immersive choice. She is a naive, kind-hearted and trusting person stuck with limited language and cultural fluency in a foreign court stuffed to the brim with schemes and intrigues, and everyone knows it. So you only get a glimpse of all the political intrigue as they all fly completely over her head (these schemes only get explained in full in the epilogue/side stories told by the side characters) and have to try to figure out for yourself what’s actually going on. There is also an excellently done character progression as she slowly loses her innocence and happiness and is ground down into despair—her voice starts off rather silly and childish and then grows both more mature and much more sad.

The author Fei Wo Si Cun has a reputation for angsty, obsessive, incredibly asshole male leads who are basically a forest of walking red flags. But it worked very well for me in this story because it becomes very clear after a certain point that the male lead Li Chengyin is also the main villain and primary antagonist of the story. In fact, the book can be seen as a deconstruction of the common “kind-hearted naive princess marries a cold ruthless prince from an enemy kingdom and then they fall in love” trope/storyline. Li Chengyin is incredibly ruthless and cunning because that was the only way to survive the intrigues of the royal court and stay alive as crown prince. Xiaofeng’s warm and open-hearted personality is like catnip to someone with his personality, but being a monster who loves only one person does not make him any less a monster, and so he loves her but he also destroys everything that she loves, and it all ends in tears.

Overall, recommended if you’re in the mood for what’s essentially a perfect tragedy, starring a pair of lovers so doomed even being granted a clean slate and a second chance by Fate is not enough.

A note about the translation: the English translation is by Tianshu, and this is one of the best Chinese-English translations that I’ve read recently. There is no awkward “translationese” or jerky sentences—the prose flows smoothly and is downright lovely in many parts, and overall feels like a labor of love. I also liked the choice to link footnotes to all the bits of classical Chinese poetry that’s quoted in text. The one choice I’m puzzled by is the change in structure; the original novel (or at least the version I found online) had 42 chapters in the main story, plus some bonus chapters that are snippets from the POV of certain side characters (these are technically not necessary to read but highly recommended). The English translation aggregates the text into four very long chapters/parts instead, plus the bonus side stories. I’m not sure why Tianshu decided on this grouping, as this means there is no easy point to take a break in the middle of a very long part compared to the original.

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (trans. Faelicy & Lily)

My first danmei cnovel, and I had a great time! About Shen Yuan, a young man who hate-read the entirety of a super popular and clichéd cultivation harem webnovel and died while in the middle of raging about how terrible the writing and plot holes are...only to wake up having transmigrated into said webnovel, as the villainous mentor who will face a brutal end by the OP Gary Stu male protagonist. Now he has to somehow get into the guy's good graces to avoid his canon fate and fix the original novel's plot holes...and of course this being danmei he accidentally changes the romance from M/F one-dude-with-a-massive-harem to M/M along the way.

Shen Yuan's running commentary mocking the the cliches of the hackneyed harem cultivation webnovel he's been unwillingly transmigrated into were hilarious, and I also loved every instance where he had to stay in character as this cool and unmoved master while internally swearing and freaking out. He's also a very funny example of an incredibly unreliable narrator.

My only complaints were that 1) I wish the female characters got more to do (not unexpected for a danmei, but it’s still disappointing to have several intriguing and layered male side characters whereas all the side female characters are much more flat in comparison) and 2) that sex scene sure was...something. Still, this was incredibly fun to read, and I'm definitely going to check out MXTX's other works!

stevenpiziks

Awful, awful weather lately. Yesterday it was in the high 50s and very rainy. The sky was so gloomy, it felt like the sun had set. Last night, we had terrible wind. It made the trees out back shudder and shake like they angry. Creepy in the dark. Today the temperature plunged. The wind stuck around. It snowed and snowed. Visibility was low most of the day.

I have to say it's been lovely looking out the window at this awful weather from inside my nice, cozy house, knowing I don't have to go out in it.

stevenpiziks

Today's retired guy jobs:

--Clearing the driveway for the first time since I got married. Clearing the driveway has always been Darwin's responsibility, and I refused to learn how to even start the snow blower so the job could never be foisted onto me. But now I'm retired and Darwin still works, so I learned to start the blower. Today, I used it for the first time. Cleared the driveway right out. One snag--the plastic ignition key dropped out of its slot somehow and the motor died. I searched and searched for the key, but couldn't find it. Fortunately, a spare was attached to the start handle and I was able to finish the job.

--Clearing out many bathroom drawers. Our bathroom drawers (including a big set of drawers in the closet) are crammed with stuff, to the point where it was getting hard to find something we needed. Today, I brought a trash box into the room and went through every drawer. I tossed all the old meds, mosquito repellent, sun blocker, and more, more, more. Then I rearranged what was left into an organizational pattern that made sense. So much nicer.

--Ordered some drawer sorters online to keep the bathroom drawers orderly. Also tracked down and ordered a couple more snow blower keys in case the current one also gets lost.

Who know what I'll accomplish next!