Unbridled
May 9, 2022 4:10 AM   Subscribe

my name is Post / and wen its blue / i give the cliks / for u to vue / but wen let free / i roam in stead / u tell the tails / i lik the thread

hi hello look out this thread is on the loose! This thread is off the leash, on the hoof, and free ranging. Be warned, this thread may be disarming and considered mangerless.
posted by taz (96 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I was just in Pittsburgh this weekend for a whirlwind trip; my cousin's daughter had her First Communion, and I am the godmother so I thought I should make a showing.

....Seven-year-olds know a LOT of poop jokes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:22 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


I used a senior discount for the first time in my life yesterday. We played miniature golf with our daughter and her family for mother’s day.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:28 AM on May 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


I am going to take this space to lament what has become of boingboing. I keep going back to it because there is some really great curation still happening but the ads have been aggressive for a long time and are just getting worse -- now we're into autoplay loud territory.

Also, there is this type of bird that wakes up about now and just hits one note, over and over. Why am I awake?
posted by treepour at 4:41 AM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


After two years, four shots, and diligently wearing a KN95 mask at all times, I was finally done in by my campus dropping its mask mandate. (Not the only person on campus to whom this happened, I hasten to add.) So I have been stuck in my house under isolation since last week. At least the boosting did its job: the experience has mostly been like the aftermath of being sick than being sick itself. Well, aside from everyone's favorite COVID symptom, the disappearance of taste and smell. ("I guess I'll be spending less on restaurants for at least the next several weeks," I remarked, wearily.) The most bizarre part of this has involved social distancing from the cats, who can contract COVID from their humans; needless to say, it is very difficult to translate the mechanisms of viral transmission into a language that cats can understand, and so there has been a lot of indignant meowing and attempts to break into whatever room I'm in at the time.
posted by thomas j wise at 4:49 AM on May 9, 2022 [18 favorites]


I made Mother’s Day lunch, and sweet and spicy tomato chutney, and processed and froze a bunch of ginger, and started a pound of habaneros to ferment yesterday.

Also I went to a specialty recumbent bike shop on Saturday, and ordered a new hpveloteknik Scorpion fs 26. I was diagnosed with neck arthritis last month and can’t ride normal bikes anymore, but I’m going to try to hang on with a recumbent as long as I can.
posted by notoriety public at 4:52 AM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


A couple of years ago--at the start of the pandemic, I guess?--I griped about playing Satisfactory, and what an awful time I had, being trounced by giant armored pig-things. Well, after buying it a second time as part of a recent bundle, I decided to try it again, and I have to tell you, I loved it. I put in a truly obscene number of hours over the past few weeks, building and building and building, until I watched my last shipment of goods flying up the space elevator with a weird sense of both accomplishment and fretfulness...all these factories, what would I do with them now? I suppose I'll just leave them idle until the next update comes out!
posted by mittens at 5:39 AM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


So I heard the pandemic's over? No official word from the WHO or the CDC, but all the mask laws and caps on indoor gatherings have been lifted, so the case load must have dropped to practically nothing, right? Oh, right, that's because they've stopped properly collecting data, creating a nifty feedback loop where case numbers keep dropping so the reporting/contact tracing budget keeps getting reduced.

Meanwhile, in the darkest recesses of his mind, I'm pretty sure Dante himself never envisioned a circle of hell like the one in which we now find ourselves. Both of my kids tested positive for COVID within 36 hours of one another last week. The oldest is vaccinated but still caught it; the youngest just turned five, and would have been eligible, but you can't get your vaccine until 90 days after you last tested positive for COVID, and HE HAD FUCKING COVID IN FEBRUARY so we were a week shy of being vaccine-eligible. They're not at death's door, so mostly this is just a logistical nightmare (oh hello nice weather, how nice of you to finally make an appearance this week, so that I have to bar the doors to keep the stir-crazy small children from bolting to the playground), but the sheer tin-eared jackassery of the city and state health departments is stunning. No attempt at contact tracing, a distinct lack of curiosity about the sudden school-wide surge in cases, and a general sense of cramming their heads into a hole in the sand and pretending nothing is happening. Also it's month 27 of the pandemic, and there's still no accommodation for remote schoolwork for kids while they're in mandatory quarantine, because dedicating IT resources to that would be acknowledging that the virus still exists, and heaven forfend.
posted by Mayor West at 5:49 AM on May 9, 2022 [24 favorites]


My kitty Earl, who was only outdoors because he was a master escape artist, got into something poisonous. The vet did what he could but Earl didn't make it.

He was black with no white spots, wary of strangers, elegant and talkative, with the silkiest coat and the best cuddles.

RIP Earl. I miss you.
posted by emjaybee at 5:57 AM on May 9, 2022 [72 favorites]


I'm so sorry about Earl, emjaybee.
.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:00 AM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


Sorry about your Earl, emjaybee. I am a dog person, but I know that we pour our hearts into our pets because the good ones make us better people.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:08 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


I fell onto my torn shoulder while on vacation a week ago, and every time I think that it's getting better, something startles me and the JERK lets me know that in fact I probably need some PT.

Sure was beautiful on those beaches, though... *sigh*
posted by wenestvedt at 6:10 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


My current challenge is getting my will signed. This is a problem because, since I'm retired and since COVID, I don't actually know two people who can act as witnesses. If I can't get my bank to witness my will, I may have to resort to hiring a lawyer just to get the thing signed. *sigh* Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb big pile of money.
posted by SPrintF at 6:33 AM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Psy and Suga from BTS have a new song out that I can't stop listening to: That That
posted by The Adventure Begins at 6:43 AM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


So sorry about Earl! That is terrible.
posted by Glinn at 6:58 AM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


I am just going to list the things I planted this weekend. The commonsense around here is that we are frost-safe after mother's day, so I went for it yesterday.
- 2 kinds of lettuce
- radish starts
- chard starts
- chioggia beets
- carrots
- dahlias
- cosmos
- zinnia
- echinacea
- black-eyed susans

This in addition to the peas, potatoes, onions, and rhubarb planted last week (I know, rhubarb takes 2 years. It's an investment in future pie.) I also put in herbs: oregano, thyme, basil, sage, and chives. I have a lemon geranium. The garlic we planted last fall is about a foot tall. I think I spotted a volunteer sunflower, and there are certainly bits of dill coming up here and there.

This is an enormous plot down at the community garden. Later this month I'll do the tomatoes and beans.

Of course, I'm out of town for half of June and a good chunk of July, so who knows how much of it I'll get to eat. Time for regrets later! Now I gloat.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:06 AM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


I'm so sorry about Earl. Unexpected loss is so hard.

In the realm of pet emotions, we are going on a mini-vacation to a resort that doesn't allow pets, so my dog is going to stay with his breeder. I've never left him with anyone before. Of all people, she should be fine, but I'm absolutely sick with worry.
posted by HotToddy at 7:25 AM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


I also sorry to hear about Earl.

Last year I mentioned to a friend of mine since high school, forty-plus years ago, that he and I were in the minority amongst our circle, being in our mid-fifties and both still having two parents around. Alas, his father passed away a month or so ago now.

His dad was also named Earl, but I think it was a series of strokes in Human Earl’s case, not escaping the house and eating something bad for him. Still, I hope Human Earl and Cat Earl have gone off to have new adventures beyond the fields we know.

After two years, four shots, and diligently wearing a KN95 mask at all times, I was finally done in by my campus dropping its mask mandate.

I spent the latter half of April working for my alma mater, helping administer exams. These were their first in-person exams since December 2019, and a lot of institutional memory had gone away, but that it is a different rant.

Everyone indoors on campus was obliged to remain masked (except in cafeterias and such while eating). One exam I was presider for was being written in a lecture hall. I and my two colleagues let in the students, nearly a hundred of them, and let them seat themselves at the desks where the exams awaited.

They began writing at the appointed time. Perhaps ten minutes into the exam, I looked over the students, all bent over their papers and noticed that one seemed to be maskless. I checked with my colleagues to see if either of them knew of some exemption or the like the student had; normally such a thing would have been covered in the notes for the presider, but as I say, institutional memory. Neither knew anything about an exemption.

I approached the student and sotto voce, asked him to put his mask on. “I don’t have one,” he said. I was puzzled by this as I had watched all the students enter as my colleagues were checking student IDs at the door, and no one had come in bare-faced. There were supposed to be a box of surgical masks in every exam venue for situations where a strap broke or what-have-you, but the admin was, as mentioned, a bit of a shambles. No masks here, but I had some spares of my own.

I sighed and pulled a sealed KN-95 out of my bag and handed it to him. He took it out of its packaging and hung it over one ear, then returned to his exam. I asked him to wear it correctly; this elicited a series of complaints: “But it is soooooo uncomfortable, I cannot concentrate with it on, I haven’t had to wear one before, the mask mandate is over in Ontario, is it such a big deal?” I told I’m the mask mandate was still in effect on campus (every external door he could have come in through had a sign to this effect). He shrugged and went back to his exam.

I thought back to our somewhat shambolic training: previous years we had maybe a hundred temporary staff gather on campus a couple weeks ahead to cover how to administer the exams and ask questions to clarify tricky cases, but this year it has been an hour-long video sent out which we were asked to watch. I knew about the mask requirement but I was foggy on the enforcement if someone refused ... I think I was technically in my rights to call campus security, but that might have been disproportionate.

Instead I fell back to the basic stick, an incident report. It’s an all-purpose form for when something goes seriously amiss during an exam. In maybe fifty previous exams over the past few years in the Before Times, I had seen one used only once, when a student became seriously ill twenty minutes in, and had to leave the room instead of completing the exam.

I wrote one up about the incident, explaining what happened and the steps taken, and put it aside: the student always gets to read the report and can offer up their own defense on a separate form.

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, the professor arrived. The majority of exams will have a prof or some teaching assistants on hand for at least part of the exam to answer questions. After the prof arrived, I asked him if the student in the middle of the third row had a mask exemption we should know about it. The prof scanned the room, located the student, sighed, and said, “Oh. Him. I’ll talk to him.” He did so, and within fifteen seconds the student retrieved his own personal mask from his bag and put it on, leaving it in place for the duration of the exam.

At the end, I gave the student the incident report to read and offered the blank response form if he wanted to offer up his side of the tale. He did, and returned it to me to hand in. The essence of his position was that he did not know why he was being singled out for this.

I thought, “Hmmmm.... ninety-one people in that room, ninety wearing masks. Why could that final person have been treated differently. Take your time; see if you can work it out...”

The following day I was on campus again for more exams, and had lunch with my cousin, a university employee who is Undersecretary of Student Relations or something of the sort. I mentioned the anecdote to her and asked, “There is a written policy on masks, right?”

She said, “There definitely is. I wrote the fucking thing. Would you like a hard copy?” I took it and kept it in my bag for the rest of the exams but it never became an issue again.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:31 AM on May 9, 2022 [15 favorites]


we dog-sat a pomeranian, by Sunday morning I referred to him as "the vile creature" and my lab/shepherd's Good Girl stock increased to unprecedented levels ("buy! buy!") so there's that.. if you have a bossy, indulged goofball of a dog and you want to appreciate it's behaviour, just spend time with a small breed with no real training

Sunday's reward ("goodbye, vile creature, hopefully for a goodly long time") with the goofball was a righteous 2-hour romp along the creek, up and down the bank and into the water to skip stones, fetch sticks, gods it was wonderful. May 8th brought in a squall of flying snow and it just made the day memorable.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:41 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


When we were on our vacation last week, all the kids were at school or working a couple of the days. We asked my son's girlfriend to stop by and let our "Open-Box Dog" (rescue dog) out to pee at lunchtime, because the dog looooooves her.

Each day she sent us a picture of him absolutely delighted with life. I think he's under the impression that he's her boyfriend now or something.

But he's been sleeping all morning today, and I think he is a bit disappointed to realize that I am here for good again, and she's not returning this week for more lunch dates.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:43 AM on May 9, 2022 [11 favorites]


This weekend has been personally hard for reasons that won't interest anyone else. But, I finally remembered to return to playing the "elevator game" when leaving for work this morning: while riding the elevator, you think up 2 questions that will definitely have known answers but that you don't happen to know the answer to. Then look up the answers while commuting. This morning mine were "where did oranges originate" and "what is the etymology of the word 'toboggan'." I'm not sure it's useful, but it is a really fun way to start the day. Especially the brief, self-imposed panic when trying to invent good questions in 25 seconds.

Also, sympathy and best wishes, Earl, and those dealing with COVID. And everybody else too.
posted by eotvos at 7:48 AM on May 9, 2022 [14 favorites]


emjaybee, with Earl.. well, a cat is in my lap anytime I take a seat on the couch, as he gets older he becomes less of the aloof stray who wandered in one Easter and more of the +/- 10-year-old who likes a warm lap, and mine in particular. Now I run my hand along his back, and starting to feel the ridge of his spine a little. Age.

I'm so sorry you lost Earl before it was time. It's hard enough, had to say goodbye to a real survivor of a little dog in January. Another stray cat, Ray, lived to be an irascible old coot and when Jules showed up in Easter, Ray decided he did not want to share his house with a younger cat. He went down the street to a rental, a young guy had been living there for a while, and they "batched up." That guy loved Ray so much, and when the time came my partner accompanied them both for Ray's last sleep. She has this pattern of taking in strays.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:57 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


wow, is this thread ever resonating...

I'm seven weeks past rotator cuff surgery, my shoulder is maybe half-healed but still precarious. Last night Mrs. Blank and I were playing with our Jekyll-and-Hyde shelter adoptee canine, who was in full Hyde mode. As we humans tossed a toy back and forth, canine leaped and deflected it right at our TV. Reflexes kicked in and I reached to snare it and instantly felt like I'd been stabbed through the shoulder. My physical therapist calls this the "oh shit" moment, where you think you've re-torn everything, but 99% of the time you're OK and in a couple of days feel better. Fingers crossed.

And at the teenage Blanks' high school there's been a resurgence of COVID-19. This being Florida, they won't even tell us how many cases, but anecdotally we know of a half-dozen just in our kids' circle. Because... one of them is one of my kids. And he came down with it six days before the opening of the spring musical. "Grease," for which he's been rehearsing since January. It's the first time he's ever tried out for a play, and he landed a major part.

Here's one time it actually pays to be in Florida: Under our actively evil governor's policies, kids can go back to school after five days, positive or not, as long as there's no fever.

So my son was able to return in time for the final dress rehearsal -- his only one -- and then perform the next night. And he went out there, friends, and absolutely killed it both nights. He was over the moon happy. This may be our lucky break for the year, or even the decade, but I'll take it, even over having an intact shoulder.
posted by martin q blank at 8:03 AM on May 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


I just want to say that Earl is a great name for a cat and I'm sorry for your loss.
My Naga is also all black and a great conversationalist.
posted by signal at 8:08 AM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


(I realize above that I offered sympathy to Earl, rather than emjaybee. Sorry for my confusion. Though, I have sympathy for both.)
posted by eotvos at 8:20 AM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Daughter is home from college for a month before going off to her summer camp job in Maine. So far this morning, she has managed to spill a venti cup full of Starbucks strawberry lemonade on her carpet and drop her phone in the toilet. My wife has offered to go to the local weed dispensary later today to get her some edibles to try to back her off the stress ledge she has put herself on. It's going to be a long month.
posted by briank at 8:24 AM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


Offspring visited with dog and discovered a terrific walking trail in our area I didn’t know about. I need more woodsy walking opportunities.

Condolences about Earl. My two cats are idiots but I would much as them tremendously.
posted by zenzenobia at 8:32 AM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


My wife bounced back quickly from her bout of COVID, and just went out and crushed her LMHC licensing exam, so we're going to do some celebrating soon.

I still get coughing fits and have some congestion, so I guess it's long-ish COVID for me.

One of the trees in our yard lost a giant limb over the weekend, and I can't get our tree guy to come out until next week, so Oona has a new American Ninja Cat Warrior course for a while.
posted by emelenjr at 8:40 AM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Theme song for this thread.

I’m an only child and a loner by nature. In college, there were some women that I decided were my sisters. They accepted and it has been thus since. Since my parents have passed, I don’t have any family to speak of.

This week, one of my sisters is coming in from Australia. Haven’t seen her in nearly 20 years, but we talk occasionally. Her brother was my best friend who died last year.

I’m going to be a bigger hot mess than usual.

Trepidacious grumping … not even really grumping.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 8:51 AM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


it's one thing to read about beavers and know there are beavers and see them on nature shows and have some idea that they build dams.. it's quite something to see their work up close. the logistics of a major dam, and the area that is impacted, is truly impressive.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:52 AM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


Yesterday and today I moved around a bunch of living room furniture so that it will always be easy to build a fort when the grandchildren come visit, which they do at least twice a week. Some strawberries survived the Swedish winter and the rhubarb, which I inherited from the earlier community garden plot renter, grew from barely there to several inches high in a week. It is not warm, exactly, but sunrise was at 4:44 AM and sunset will be at 9:19 PM and I am basking in the light as much as possible even if that means wearing several layers.

Condolences to emjaybee on the loss of Earl.That's horrible. And I am so sorry for the loss of your best friend, JustSayNoDawg, last year. How great that you get to see your sister soon.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:57 AM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


I have been a lurker on MeFi for 20 years. (gross)

I realize this an embarrassing and problematic thing to admit. I have no idea why it has taken a literal lifetime of an average rockstar biopic in the making, but for some reason, I always enjoyed partaking of the genius, wisdom, and grace of the MeFi community without contributing to it myself.

After reading through every comment on yet another Free thread, and having these small glimpses into your lives, I realized that lurking is nearly a crime, and I should make an effort. MeFi is awesome, and has been a lone holdout of the promise of the internet without becoming a cesspool of marketized content and ads. I miss the promise of the late nineties and early aughts internet... the thing that was going to make us all better, but somehow, made everything a little bit worse.

But not here. And that is worth something.
posted by discardme at 9:04 AM on May 9, 2022 [64 favorites]


Welcome discardme!
posted by signal at 9:07 AM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


welcome, discardme. no shame.
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:28 AM on May 9, 2022 [17 favorites]


^ I feel like a prank just happened

nice work, you two!
posted by elkevelvet at 9:30 AM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


Vale to Earl. I'm very sorry for your loss.

....Throughout much of the morning I've been doing battle with the billing company for my physical therapy - but "with" in the sense that they are fighting alongside me. Because - sometime a year ago, the billing processing for my physical therapy got well and truly FUBAR'ed, thanks to my PT having a receptionist who was a bit of a ninny. As near as I can figure, the timeline was something like this:

* In March of 2021, My insurance told me that they would only cover a finite number of appointments per calendar year. I told my therapist I would switch to paying out of pocket, and thus would be paying them that agreed-upon out-of-pocket rate.

* In May of 2021, my therapists' office was bought out by a new franchise, and everyone was switched to their billing system.

* In AUGUST of 2021, we discovered that the receptionist in March had not actually switched me over to the "self-pay" plan, and was still trying to process my payments as if they were insurance co-pays. I brought this to the attention of the NEW receptionist (who was hired because the previous receptionist was indeed a ninny) and they made that change.

* In January of 2022, I asked to be switched BACK to my insurance covering me since it was a new calendar year. It still took a couple sessions for that change to go through.

* I was booted off coverage in March of 2022 again, and this time I was ready to just go it alone anyway.

So between the insurance confusion, the ninny receptionist, and the switch from one franchise owner to another, the billing department got COMPLETELY confused and tried sending me a bill a couple months ago for a couple grand. I called them and explained what happened, sending them a whole lot of backup credit statements, and we've been trying to sort things out ever since. (Today's development: it looks like I wasn't charged at ALL for the entire month of May last year and no one seems to know why, but the only reason we found that is because yesterday I got billed for non-payment in SEPTEMBER of last year and called to ask "what the hey?")

....And then in the middle of all of this, I received word from a friend that another person we went to high school wanted to reach out to me. The other person was basically a "frenemy", and I am told she wants to "apologize for past behavior" and "talk about that with me." ...I said she could give her my rarely-used gmail address, and promised only to read an email and MAYBE respond once; it would depend greatly on the email. I don't hold out much hope, frankly.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:33 AM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


After two plus years of wondering "is it covid or do I just hate my job?" I find myself now wondering, "is it long covid or do I just hate my job?" I know, I know, why not both.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:09 AM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


My husband and I are nearly recovered from our bout with Covid, I’m saying that the sneezing I’m doing is allergies.
Saw my oncologist last Friday and I’m still what they call NED (no evidence of disease). It’s coming up on two years since the start of my treatment, and I’m so happy!
emjaybee, I’m so very sorry about your loss of your beloved kitty Earl.
posted by dbmcd at 10:48 AM on May 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


Joining the chorus of condolences for Earl's human.

I am three jobs removed from when I was a bedside nurse, and am just now realizing how utterly miserable I was.

I haven't had Covid yet. Not sure how I managed that!
posted by shiny blue object at 10:49 AM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Hey, discardme, welcome. There's never a bad time to get to know folks. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 10:56 AM on May 9, 2022


Many sympathies, emjaybee.

....Seven-year-olds know a LOT of poop jokes.

I have it on good authority that everyone does it.

First outdoors bike ride of the year yesterday! And gosh, isn't that late in the year, relatively speaking, but the weather in the spring has been kind of crap here. (There was a bracing headwind on the way back, but luckily that was also mostly downhill so it sort of cancelled out.) Doing RAGBRAI again this year so I've really got to start piling the miles on; I'm signed up for a cycling series in Springfield that does a series of rides of pick-your-own-length (up to a full imperial century) throughout the summer, so that'll help.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:13 AM on May 9, 2022


eotvos, so sorry about your difficult weekend.

I hope all the people dealing with Covid recover soon.

Hi there, discardme!

At the end of the last thread, I posted this excellent cover of Walk on the Wild Side.
The other one I've got on repeat is due to the mesmerizing, nighttime, single shot rollerskating choreo, Chet Faker-Gold (wait for it)
posted by Glinn at 11:15 AM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


> ....Seven-year-olds know a LOT of poop jokes.

I have it on good authority that everyone does it.


I think novelty of me being a new grownup to shock made her amp up a bit.

I am very tempted to opt for something from the Captain Underpants series for her next birthday but I think her mom would kill me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:21 AM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Last night, I picked up vol. 2 of the DVD set for the TV show, The Lieutenant, Gene Roddenberry's pre-Star Trek show from 1964 (the year I was born). I picked this up about 10 years ago, but at the time I think I only watched one episode (featuring Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett) and was not taken by it, so I put it in a drawer.

I watched (without knowing ahead of time) To Set It Right, an epidode on race relations that apparently was filmed but not actually broadcast. The show centers on Gary Lockwood as a Marine Corps Lieutenant and his day to day life. Robert Vaughn co-stars, right before he landed Man From U.N.C.L.E.

I expected the episode to be dated and simplistic, but it was much better than I expected. The storyline is two new enlisted men arrive at the base who have history - they went to high school together at a newly integrated school. Lockwood spends the episode trying to figure out how to make them get along, and only has minimal success, which I felt was realistic and not how I expected the episode to go. Nichelle Nichols appears (in perhaps her first tv appearance - it says "Introducing" before her name) as well.

There is one instance of the n-word which was shocking since I wasn't expecting it. Bottom Line: I liked this enough to give some more episodes a try.
posted by wittgenstein at 11:26 AM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


This month is going to be very busy at work, so I should be using this relatively quiet Monday afternoon to Get Ahead, but instead I have zero motivation and am just watching the Moldovan Eurovision entry on repeat. I am doing minimal work as well, but probably future me will not be impressed by my half-hearted multitasking.
posted by the primroses were over at 11:31 AM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


I think I'm three (four?) weeks out from covid and I'm still going through random days where I'm very low energy and coughing uncontrollably. But other days I'm mostly fine.

I got covid about a week before I was planning to get a fourth shot and given that it's expected that there will be another round of boosters for everyone this fall, I'm too far into the six month window to get any boosters before then. So I'm going to wing it this summer and hope I got enough immunity from actually having it to last until October.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:32 AM on May 9, 2022


The tiny LGBTQ+ club at the college where I work had a drag contest this weekend and wanted staff and faculty to participate. So not only was this Friday my first time seeing drag live, but it was also my first time performing in drag! (Very badly; but hey, "worst drag king in Marshall County, Iowa" is not a bad thing to add to my list of accomplishments.)
posted by Jeanne at 11:35 AM on May 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


I am traveling to India on Sunday from the US for work and am not looking forward to it.

I do not do well in hot weather and the highs are predicted to be 110+ F as most of India is suffering from a horrible heat wave. It's rarely been above 70 F in Philadelphia this spring so I am in no way acclimated to high temperatures.
posted by nolnacs at 12:11 PM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


I was at first shocked, then glad to learn that Jason Kottke is taking a long-needed break from his blog. Shocked because his is one of maybe four sites I check on daily and can reliably count on for learning something cool and/or provocative, and glad because burnout is real and deserves more attention, and I know the feeling of needing time out on "open water" (and am proabably a better person after having taken that kind of time recently).

Jason, if you're out there, bon voyage!
posted by swift at 12:42 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Here's one time it actually pays to be in Florida: Under our actively evil governor's policies, kids can go back to school after five days, positive or not, as long as there's no fever.

This actually follows CDC guidance, which is also bad. Even here in NY, the school nurse told us they don't care about a follow-up test, just that symptoms are improving and there is no fever. So ... yes, they actively want all the kids (and their caregivers) to get infected (which is certainly how we all caught it; yes, I am still very, very annoyed).

I went outside for the first time in a week today (more than to just take the trash out, anyway), and it was a really lovely day. I'm looking forward to enjoying the weather in the next few days.

Also looking forward to enjoying some more first-place Mets baseball in the coming days. (Not looking forward to their inevitable collapse.)
posted by uncleozzy at 1:01 PM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


I am very tempted to opt for something from the Captain Underpants series for her next birthday but I think her mom would kill me.

Those books are so, so good. I don't understand parents who don't appreciate them. We read them together in 2020, but since then, my daughter has torn through the series more than once on her own. They're funny as hell, honestly.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:03 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Glinn, I love Chet Faker, and agree that the video is mesmerizing, but also thank you so much for linking to that Walk on the Wild Side cover. Love it. Now I feel like I need to know more about your music faves, which might also already be or might become my music faves!
posted by taz at 2:04 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


I went with Mr. Peach to the hospital for the latest meeting with the oncologist and the new chemo, and was able to use the phrase I've been saving up, which is, "I am beginning to feel as if we're treating the cancer and not the patient." It didn't have nearly the effect I was hoping. The oncologist was very calm and kind. tl;dr tumors are growing again and that's why he can't handle eating. On the positive side, he's been alive two years longer than he expected. But his arms are little sticks and he was already slight to begin with.

I wrote half of a short story in the waiting room, though. And the paperback version of the latest book is live as of today. Oh, and our weird little pod has apparenty still managed not to catch COVID.
posted by Peach at 2:39 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


lol taz, I'm so glad I reposted that one!
It just so happens I recently posted a music question, maybe try those!
Also if you have a moment, send me some of your favorite songs?
posted by Glinn at 3:18 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


I have very mixed feelings about what happened with Frank Langella being fired from "Fall of the House of Usher" - He responds to the events involved in a candid letter - not an apology, more of a "Are you kidding me?!" And i tend to agree, the whole 'intimacy counselor" requirements seem like a lawyer's invention. On the other hand, Hollywood and more have been awful towards women. Yet, a young actor who isn't willing to try being at least open to spontaneity doing a scene with a performer like Langella ... and apparently his 2012 memoir was chock full o' sexy talk. I dunno. Maybe he's horrible to women.
posted by Mr.Pointy at 3:52 PM on May 9, 2022


Emjaybee, I am so sorry about Earl. I had a very similar thing happen to my, also all black, cat Mori, and it was heartbreaking.

Welcome, discardme!

Peach...I am so sorry for all you and Mr. Peach are going through. My ex Mr. B had cancer too and it is such a difficult journey.

Me, I've had a bit of a concern, which I'll probably make an AskMeFi for.

Hugs to everyone working through COVID related issues!
posted by annieb at 3:55 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


So I have seven hours of meetings today (spread across what looks to be an 11 hour day) of which five and a half hours were contiguous back to back meetings. At the end of that little run, I came up from my office for a little break. Because my office has a separate entrance in the back of the building I transit the front of the house to come and go -- which is great for that sense of transition! Except that when I came around the corner apparently the next door neighbor's weed whacker guys seem to have torn down my plum tree while I was busy.

I'm going to assume that a language barrier of some kind was involved in the chain of causation here. As far as I'm aware all parties are non-malicious in intent. It still sucks, though.
posted by majick at 3:57 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Weekend update: had a lovely time at the hippie festival, buying stuff and being a hippie in public. Yaaaay. I briefly met a cute guy for 30 seconds and I wish I'd somehow followed up on that, but how do you do that, exactly? Who knows, not I. Well, maybe someday I run into him again, let's hope.

Theater update:
(a) The out-of-town stage manager was supposed to return on Saturday, but apparently got some medical issue where they prevented her from flying home. The substitute one gamely continued on for the weekend, but afterwards was all "lose my number, she better come back," LOL.
(b) They had no drummer for the weekend, so a cast member was drumming and most of his bits were doled out to others and he only surfaced from the pit for the bits he had to do personally.
(c) One girl got laryngitis and her parts were also divvied out among the cast as well.
(d) Another one got bronchitis (not covid, thank god) and I guess she's prone to it. Anyway, she was still there, but literally had to run offstage at several points to cough and I guess her singing had gone from soprano to bass or something like that...hope she's better later.

On a cuter note, Evita's 8-year-old is in the cast and she got busted on Sunday for chewing gum and blowing bubbles onstage. Her defense: "Don't judge me. I'm 8." And yet, still funny.
Anyway, the show carried on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:15 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


majick, I’m so sorry about your plum tree. That sucks.
posted by Glinn at 4:20 PM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


One sweet thing that I have been privileged to observe has been the return of ospreys to our local river. The ospreys returned to several spots along the river, including a nest built atop the far light standard at the football stadium next to my place of work.

Now, ospreys don't build nests out of mere twigs, feathers and found bits of twine. Oh no, we're talking branches, cordwood and discarded chunks of 2"x 4" s! These nests were massive - like the size of my couch! I sometimes walked under the light standard just to be amazed at what had been dropped to the ground.

Last year, during Covid, the alumni association poured a bunch of money in to refurbish the stadium. Down came the old light standards and I thought that was the end for the ospreys. (I actually thought it might have been a deliberate attempt to get rid of them - fire hazard, right?)

This spring, I was out for my lunch hour walk along the river and the crews were installing the new light standards. My normal trail was closed (safety reasons, those things are tall!). But, hey! Big cranes... I'm a seven year old boy! Let's watch!

And then I noticed something unusual about the far corner light standard. I carefully approached the installers and asked, "Is that a nesting box for the ospreys?"

And the answer was, "Yes, they said we had to include a nesting box for the ospreys."

Two days later, the ospreys were back.
posted by shoesfullofdust at 4:33 PM on May 9, 2022 [9 favorites]


emjaybee, I'm so sorry.

Welcome discardme!

Took my new-to-me 1 year old pup to the vet to be chipped and get more vaccines today. She was positive for Lyme; vet thinks she got it before she came to me. I think her previous owner did not take care of her much, at all. Pup was quite happy to take doxycycline pills in chunks of hot dog. I gave her so many treats at the vet's and after, she's pretty chuffed about that, too.

Depression, health issues, Covid isolation, winter, mourning previous pup had me in a bad place for too long. Pup is keeping me quite active and I am exhausted, arthritic joints are not happy, but I am overall feeling better, and the increased exercise is making me feel better, slowly. Also, warmth & sun. The plan is working.

Raised beds have been prepped, imperfectly, but whatevs. Planted (small rows of) green beans, arugula, radishes, also salad greens, chard, spinach, kale. The pea seeds keep hiding. Have planted nasturtiums, marigolds, morning glories, sweet peas, nigella, basil, parsley, cilantro in pots. There are some pots remaining to be planted with flowers, notably moonflowers. There are bare root things to be planted, and onion sets. The week is expected to be warm and sunny. I'll wait at least another week to put in tomato plants; they dislike cold. Official last frost date is May 4, but I don't think that's accurate any more. I am so pleased to have gotten so much done; the pup lazed in the sun and now wants a walk.
posted by theora55 at 5:54 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


[Captain Underpants] books are so, so good. I don't understand parents who don't appreciate them.

I'm guessing it's because some parents are trying to get their kids to STOP with all the poop and fart and booger and butt jokes, and here comes Captain Underpants which leans into that kind of thing and so "oh dear Lord they've learned even MORE butt jokes from those books now and we'll be hearing them for weeks...." I don't mind butt jokes as such, but I was getting the full throttle and I was coming very close to an upper limit.

Theora: I just came in from working in the community garden, where I scored a plot last week COMPLETELY unexpectedly and also signed up for putting in the group herb garden as well. There's a community garden advocacy group that was doing a giveaway of free plants and seeds today to nearby gardens, and someone grabbed some things from them - I live around the corner from my garden and head over after work, and scored all but ONE of the plants I'd planned to put in for free; two kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of peppers, and a basil plant, and I also panicked and picked an eggplant because why not. (No zucchini - I get enough from the CSA.) Another of the basil plants we got is in the group herb garden along with the thyme and oregano. I just have to get a jalapeno plant and I've got everything I was going to go with this year; I'll be picking that up along with some other herbs for the group herb plot.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:19 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Peach, sorry you're spending so much time with doctors. That sucks.

I am selfishly delighted to see you are writing, though. I read your novel Nameless Magery simply because you're a MeFite with a book, and I was delighted by how much I liked it! I just ordered the second one, too. If anyone here likes fantasy, I recommend it.

Peach, I hope you find writing to be relaxing or distracting, so that some good can come of all those waiting room hours.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:29 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Primitive Technology guy is back. Doesn't quite reach the XKCD "What If" return needs-a-post threshold, but it's pretty great for those who are into peaceful, focused building of something from nothing.
posted by Ryvar at 6:35 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


I'm one of what seems to be a decreasing minority of people who haven't had COVID (yet, I guess) and I've come to realise that it's probably because I simply don't associate with humans much, what with working from home and all. I actually don't like people much as a general rule, but I'm finding I do miss that interaction a bit and suspect I'm becoming even more of a curmudgeon because of my lack of exposure to the great unwashed.
posted by dg at 7:53 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


Many condolences about Earl. It's the hardest thing.

Thanks to a mention by SoberHighland, I'm now listening to CHIRPradio.org, and it is sparking much joy.
posted by cyndigo at 8:07 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


17yo had a band concert tonight, including a solo I was not expecting. And he was AWESOME, as all of Metafilter's Band Nerds are. Of the 3 kids, 25yo was fine, but both 20yo and 17yo were/are MAJOR BAND NERDS in the best of ways - in fact, the director has asked 20yo to come back and help out for graduation because few of her current band members have played Pomp and Circumstance due to Covid stuff the past couple of years. 17 and 20 both won a lot of MAJOR AWARDS (must be Italian!) over the years because Director likes them so much.

17yo is my youngest, and next year is his last. I've been attending band concerts for 15 years. One more to go. Fairly certain I'll get weepy.
posted by cinnamonduff at 8:26 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Apropos of nothing, here's my favorite spam mail of the day (okay, it's only morning here so I should say "favorite spam mail of the day, so far," but pretty sure this will not be surpassed): "porn stars throw a orgy teenage mutant ninja turtle porn entensity free full leanth porn jason sparks and porn passwards for porn."

There's nothing that's not perfect about this.
posted by taz at 10:31 PM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


Needs more porn.
posted by flabdablet at 11:16 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


My own Fastmail spam filter has recently come around to my own point of view on PayPal's regular account maintenance emails, treating them all as the phishing attempts they have always so closely resembled. I have not explicitly encouraged it to do this - it worked it out all by itself.

With any luck this kind of thing will become so widespread as to force PayPal to re-think the way it uses email.

Ha ha ha, who am I kidding? That would require PayPal to give more than zero shits about the security of other people's money. Given that it's essentially competing only with credit card providers, that seems highly unlikely.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 PM on May 9, 2022




Random thought of the morning: I've been on a weird listening-to-Queen kick since getting an ear-worm from the last free thread title. And, I'm kind of surprised to realize that there genuinely aren't any unambiguously happy Queen songs if you pay attention to the lyrics.

Even the ones that seem innocuous always have really dark moments: Get Down, Make Love' seems good, but then there's the middle bit with "You say it's enough, In fact it's too much" followed by what sounds like horror film music; We Will Rock You is actually a whole lot darker than it seemed when playing it in marching band; Bicycle Race is ambiguous but the word association bit is definitely hostile and might be interpreted as a couple fighting.

You're My Best Friend is the only example I can think of that is almost entirely hopeful. (To be clear, the darkness is probably why I fell in love with the band as a teenager, and may be why I still like it today.)
posted by eotvos at 4:24 AM on May 10, 2022


Also, the futurama thing is fun, zengargoyle. But, I'd argue that Farnsworth is more Fortran 77.

Also, also, verifying Queen lyrics with the Toucan extension on is filled with surprises.
posted by eotvos at 4:30 AM on May 10, 2022


wenestdvet, thank you! That gave me a little boost of joy. I do find writing relaxing and distracting, and it's always a tiny surprise when someone enjoys what I wrote.

Mr. Peach commented this morning that my remark ("treating the cancer not the patient") actually made a difference to how the doctor interacted with us, so I'm feeling slightly less depleted today!

May everyone here dealing with hard things be so enriched by something small and surprising today.
posted by Peach at 4:48 AM on May 10, 2022 [7 favorites]


I actually got nauseated reading a Captain Underpants book to my kid from all the gross jokes and I stopped buying them after that. (Don't remember which one). There's a limit, people!!

For non-gross but still silly kid books that won't make you barf, I highly recommend the Johnny Boo series.
posted by emjaybee at 9:03 AM on May 10, 2022


I will give Captain Underpants this: I am told there was one book where an evil professor tried to rename everyone according to an algorithm he wrote, and of course that algorithm was recreated in the real world - and by that system, my new name would be "Flunky Chuckleshorts".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:38 PM on May 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


Warning: Comment contains disappointing ambiguity!

I had a gap between meetings and rolled up the hill to talk to the neighbor. It's a somewhat fuzzy multigenerational non-nuclear family arrangement and I've really only interacted with one person there. That person answered the door at about 10:30 in the morning from a dead sleep and was pretty baffled and groggy. Also, pantsless.

He said he had no idea which household member brought in the workers, or what they were told to do but his guess was that it was the owner. He said that she was apparently under the impression that the whole area in front of my house was her property, which of course is nonsense. They have an access easement across my little nubbin of private drive (that they don't really need because the actual city's street was subsequently extended past their house), but no right of ownership. Of course, she may not actually think this, and it may merely be what he said.

Either way, he has (and as a result, I have) no idea what the actual workers were told to do. There's likely a language barrier on top of that which could have further distorted whatever instructions they received.

I explained I'm not trying to shake anyone down for damages, just work out how we can fix the situation and prevent it from happening again. Nobody actually responsible for my problem was available to discuss this, and I have no idea if they'll have some kind of internal discussion to sort it out. I'll give them a few days and go back up there and ask again.
posted by majick at 2:53 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


I just “helped” my 8th grader with non-linear functions. Reader, I’ve never felt dumber. I was no help at all, and started to have flashback anxiety. On top of that, I just caught a grammatical error I made in another Metafilter thread. Numbers were never my friend, but I thought I could count on words—words, oh words, why?!
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:58 PM on May 10, 2022


I mean, just to be clear, I mess up with words all the time, but, like, ugh. I did a trust fall, and the English language was distracted, looking at its phone or something, and let me go down hard.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 3:06 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


FWIW, Don.Kinsayder, earlier today, I failed spectacularly to perform basic arithmetic in front of a large class of elite college students while solving a really easy problem I wrote myself. In a class explicitly about the field I've devoted my life to. They were very kind about it.

I think I'm going to claim that every grammatical and factual mistake I make here is intentional and is a test for the reader. I challenge antibody do proof wrong.
posted by eotvos at 3:28 PM on May 10, 2022 [4 favorites]


Exhausted all day because of a man shouting and wailing down the block outside my window around 3:15 am. I think he's the same man who did a more belligerent-sounding shouting monologue last week. To make a long story short, I was sure there were people around where he was that would help him if he wanted it, plus I do not think he sounded safe, but I felt terrible. I need to find alternative resources. Certainly I was not about to inject cops into the situation.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:05 PM on May 10, 2022


Furthering this week's theme of ambiguous lack of information and people doing things haphazardly on their own initiative: a family member is busy dying from a metastatic melanoma, is not really in any position to advocate for himself (nor aware that he can), is low mobility, and has loosely delegated orchestrating his care to someone who appears to be too busy to do much more than make random doctor appointments with no agenda and no change of plan or outcome or comfort or certainty or well-being. Treatments are not in progress at this time.

The treating physicians are associated with an underfunded public hospital, apparently constrained by the state's medical coverage for indigent people, and not in any way coordinating. A third person has appeared and done his morale a great deal of good but managed to add her own whole fleet of medical, social, and economic issues to the morass bogging everything down. Everyone involved is low-SES, pathologically disorganized, erratic communicators, highly inclined towards a lot of traction less spinning of wheels, very asynchronous, and all appear to be poorly informed if well-intentioned.

We have time, energy, dollars, mobility, flexibility, and strong motivation to improve the entire current situation to the best of our ability by removing obstacles and facilitating progress. If only someone, anyone, anywhere, would tell us what the fuck is going on, what the fuck is needed, what everyone or anyone is trying to actually do, or even when anything is happening.
posted by majick at 6:09 PM on May 11, 2022 [4 favorites]


So, there was a treat for dinner tonight:

A few weeks back, my roommate and I were hearing a very anxious-sounding dog crying in a neighboring apartment. It would be whining when I got home from work, and would keep it up until when my roommate went to sleep - all told, it would be crying, constantly, for a solid 6 hours or so. After a couple days, we put an anonymous note on the door inquiring as to whether it was okay. Then after another couple days with no change, we left another (lengthier) note saying that we were concerned about the dog, and offered to maybe help keep the poor guy company. (But, yeah, do something, please.)

The next day there was a VERY apologetic note back from the neighbor saying that a) yeah, he knew the dog was upset, but b) he was only dogsitting and had a crazybusy job and was trying EVERYTHING to keep the little guy happy but it wasn't working. But the dog was back home now, and I'm really really sorry, neighbors. We emailed our forgiveness, and it lead to all of us introducing ourselves, and....turns out our neighbor was a chef and has been running this pop-up chicken place, and he said "you know what, lemme give you guys dinner to make it up to you."

Yay, free food.

We went there tonight - it's like two blocks away - and dined very well on Korean fusion stuff; a barbecue chicken sandwich, a duck leg appetizer, a broad bean salad with sesame oil, mashed potatoes with this duck gravy that my roommate and I INHALED, and some delicious - if spicy - chili-infused fried chicken. It was DELICIOUS, and my roommate is making mental lists of friends he will be bringing there on a later date.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:23 PM on May 11, 2022 [7 favorites]


Attended a panel discussion on workplace neurodiversity this morning, which led to an internal Slack channel for the community, which led to an internal Slack channel called #adhd-squirrel, which led to a tweet that stabbed me in the abdomen.
posted by majick at 9:08 AM on May 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


Seconding the parenthetical thoughts (because something else always comes up!).
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:17 AM on May 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


On further consideration it might be the other tweet what did me in. When everything is bonus content, nothing is bonus content.
posted by majick at 10:08 AM on May 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Yesterday I wrote a (physical!) letter to a friend, telling her 2 weeks worth of Evita drama. As I sealed the envelope, I remember thinking, "I wonder what this week's drama will be?"
Answer: Evita hurt her wrist, so we need to get to the theater even earlier tomorrow to reconfigure the entire show. And presumably they are gonna need to reconfigure a good chunk of her wardrobe--or at least throw out the gloves/bracelet and find wardrobes with non-tiny-wrist closures.
Oh well, since clearly we gotta have drama, it's ONLY a hurt wrist, not anything worse! (knocks wood).
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:50 PM on May 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I happen to follow several classical artist accounts on twitter that are just bots that tweet works by a specific artist, so, as an example, I have Remedios Varo, and Henri Matisse as a couple of the accounts I follow. And so on. Today I noticed on the sidebar where they recommend accounts you should follow: Edvard Munch @artistmunch, Paul Cezanne @cezanneart, and third account who is a real (as in currently alive, with their own twitter account) person. A real person whose first name is "Art."
posted by taz at 3:50 AM on May 13, 2022


I wonder what this week's drama will be?"
Answer: Evita hurt her wrist


Ha! We did a show where one of the leads dislocated his shoulder about 30 minutes before places. Fortunately(?), it was the Sunday matinee, so urgent care/ER was able to pop it back in relatively quickly. He somehow managed the 2+ hour show without pain meds.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:18 AM on May 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm waking up at 3:15 tomorrow for the World Series of Birding! That sounds more competitive than it is, at least for us. There are teams competing to see the most birds, but my friends and I (the Birders of Central New Jersey team) are just out to have some fun, and hopefully hit a hundred species tomorrow. Guess I should go to bed.
posted by mollweide at 7:28 PM on May 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


It ain't a "world series" without a trophy, y'know.

And are there ashes? I thought there's supposed to be ashes involved. Of, like...a pair of binoculars or something.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:05 PM on May 13, 2022


I don't know what the winning competitive team gets, but I'm sure I'll feel like burning things down by the time we're done 16 hours from now.
posted by mollweide at 12:31 AM on May 14, 2022


I am busy tearing out ivy. Ivy whose mains are 3 inches thick, and meshed with chainlink, and board fence. The thing about ivy growing under a sycamore tree is, you see green leaves, and you think there are just more of them under the green leaves. What is under, is 10 square yards of dead, dried leaves, waiting to burn down the fence, and the neighbor's garage. Anyway, the exercise is good.
posted by Oyéah at 12:11 PM on May 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


On further consideration it might be the other tweet what did me in.
I spend a non-trivial amount of my proofreading time removing long strings of commas and nested parentheses. (Except when I don't; sometimes I know the person I'm talking to will not object and will enjoy communicating that way. (I realize fellow mefites may legitimately question whether I proofread anything at all. (At least I did look up how to spell proofreading. (This time.))))
posted by eotvos at 5:50 PM on May 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Today I fulfilled a promise I made to my 18-year-old-self, and finally took a foraging course from Steve Brill, and spent 4 hours wandering around Prospect Park with him showing 30 of us various and sundry plants and things. He was a good teacher - if a bit too fond of terrible puns and dad jokes - but it was a long course and I think my attention started to fade as the day got hot.

But fortunately it was at the BEGINNING of the tour that he showed us wild garlic mustard, a weed which grows so prolifically that it's classified as a "Noxious Weed" in most places and people in authority would be happy to see you pulling it up - which is great, because the leaves taste very strongly of garlic and the bagfull I grabbed is now sitting in the fridge after having been turned into some AMAZING-ASS PESTO, and since there's no basil in it, it won't turn that weird brown color and will stay bright green.

And now that I'm home afterward I'm learning that my favorite ever Doctor-Companion combination is coming back.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:25 PM on May 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


And I have found a recipe for sauteed wild garlic mustard leaves on Steve Brill's website. The patch he showed us is growing in a spot near some burdock, which also makes a good saute with carrot; I'm seriously contemplating a monthly visit to Prospect Park to forage for stuff now. He also discussed the culinary uses of violets - and there are a few plots in my community garden that haven't been worked yet which are overrun with violets right now, so I'm seriously considering offering to weed them if I can keep the stuff instead of throwing it in the compost bin.

He also showed us a Juneberry tree that hadn't fruited yet and encouraged people to hit it up later; I'm already keeping my eyes on the mulberries near work, and they may fruit at the same time so I may have a very interesting culinary summer ahead of me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:38 AM on May 16, 2022


Your weekend Evita update: Evita soldiered on through with a sprained wrist. They reconfigured the show a few hours before starting on Friday, some wardrobe adjustments were made. Other than OTHER wardrobe malfunctions not involving her wrist going on Friday night, the rest of the weekend went well and the show was about perfect on Saturday night when they were filming it, and we actually got a 4/5 of the audience full show on Sunday. Cast party was Sunday night and everyone had a good time.

And as of Monday morning, Evita's now sick. :/ I don't know on Covid yet, but...well, you know how it goes these days. (No, there's no backup, we are not Broadway.) I presume if it's Covid, we're all exposed big time now, so...we just wait on if/when she gets tested, I guess. So far I'm okay but wondering if I should bail on doing anything else outside of the house this week (and I stupidly bought a theater ticket for Wednesday elsewhere), if I'm going to be permitted to go into the office later this week if it's a known Covid exposure (okay, I wouldn't mind skipping that) and of course, if the show can go on or not on the last week. Perhaps not. Sigh.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:44 AM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


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