Pay What You Like
December 12, 2022 3:17 AM   Subscribe

Hello, and welcome to Monday! To access the following free thread, please choose your level of payment: a) Your everlasting soul, b) Tuesday, c) Little Joe, d) FYPM

(Note that with option "a" you will also receive a free poodle đŸ©)
posted by taz (94 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
e) 20 dollars, same as in town
posted by pyramid termite at 3:22 AM on December 12, 2022 [15 favorites]


If you have to ask ‘how much’, you can’t afford it.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:42 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Staying in, as there's between 1cm and 1.5cm of snow on the ground outside which means that the transport infrastructure and network will have ground to a halt. Ah, England, in "winter".

One plus of staying in is catching up on TV programmes. Just finished - we are, as ever, behind here - series one of "Astrid: Murder in Paris", also known as "Bright Minds", or "Astrid et Raphaëlle" in France where it's made, after several colleagues and friends raved about it. And it's quickly become my favorite TV of the year. A short clip that's only slightly spoilery.

It's a French crime series which doesn't take itself too seriously, is intelligent (each episode is centred around a literal or figurative puzzle), has a neurodiverse lead (Sara Mortensen deserves awards for her acting) and is often scripted from the perspective of neurodiverse people (the group scenes, where they dissect why it is so tiring to interact in a neurotypical society, are great).

As per usual, in the UK it's tucked away on More4 and is a Walter Presents feature (where the good continental European TV usually ends up here). As a few flakes of snow continue to fall outside, going to track down series two and three (series four is currently being filmed) for later viewing this winter.
posted by Wordshore at 3:53 AM on December 12, 2022 [7 favorites]


I have all but one Christmas card written and ready to go in the mail. About 20 of them are headed overseas so I'm sure they'll be late.

I really am a responsible person. I have convinced three states so far to license me as a civil engineer. I've kept a baby alive for 21 months so far. I have life insurance and have fulfilled many other dreadfully boring adult responsibilities. I start dreading and procrastinating the two hours I spend every year writing Christmas cards about mid-August and always finish too late for the cards to arrive by Christmas.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 4:50 AM on December 12, 2022 [14 favorites]


So let's get this straight, the main character/player from Fallout 4 goes into cryosleep and then emerges 210 years later after an atomic bomb dropped but bones and skeletons and clothing of people who died during the blast are still somehow just laying around?

This line of thinking had me googling: "Can bones survive nuclear fallout?" Which led me to this lovely Wikipedia entry: Effects of nuclear explosions on human health

☹ Happy Monday everyone! ☹
posted by Fizz at 4:53 AM on December 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


I don't have time to click, are the effects good? They're probably pretty good, right?
posted by mittens at 4:55 AM on December 12, 2022 [12 favorites]


Ummm......
posted by Fizz at 4:59 AM on December 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


I finally quantified enough unknowns and figured out my financial priorities sufficiently to get the ball rolling towards top surgery!

Surgery access here on TERF island is not ideal, as one might expect, and going down the medical tourism route via a surgeon in Spain is currently plan A.

UK NHS route would be 5+ years from referral if I asked my GP to refer me now, just for an initial consultation to be assessed for gender dysphoria. Then at least another 2+ years to get referred for surgery. Current system not very non-binary-friendly and I'd probably have to pretend to be more of a trans man than I actually am.

UK private route would be quicker, but I don't know of any surgeons here who use an informed consent model, so I'd need 1-2 psych assessments confirming gender dysphoria (a process I loathe in principle; cis people gatekeeping who is and isn't trans is as absurd to me as neurotypical people gatekeeping who is and isn't autistic). I reached out to a clinic but they cite a 28-day turnaround period just for replies to enquiries. Likely cost around ÂŁ9k not including travel, because of course there are no private surgeons in the city where I live.

The surgeon in Spain uses an informed consent model and is happy to operate on non-binary folks. Likely cost around ÂŁ5k not including travel. I'd have to stay in Madrid for two weeks after the surgery, what a terrible shame. I emailed the clinic on Friday night and this morning received an invitation for an initial video consultation on the 3rd of January.

I am so lucky that I have the cash sitting around that I can just do this. That I was able to wait until I was ready on my own timeline, and then hopefully get it lined up pretty quickly now I'm ready to go ahead. It sucks so much that my nation of origin can't get its shit together well enough to offer this according to its own on-paper standards of care, but I still feel intensely fortunate that I'm able to do this at all. I've also heard so many trans narratives that go "I figured I was trans, and within six months I'd started hormones and had as much surgery as I wanted", and I feel good about my own much more meandering path, one where it's taken me five years since coming out to myself and my close friends to be absolutely sure that I do indeed want to do this.

I'm super excited about wearing clothes and working out without a binder! Being able to run without any jiggle! Not having tits that migrate up to my neck and make it harder to breathe when I lie down! Getting tailored clothes for my more permanent future form! And straight-up just having a body that matches my mental model of my body, without a two-cup dissociation zone between collarbone and sternum.

I suspect I'll post an Ask at some point about medical tourism experiences more generally, but if anyone here has either general or top-surgery-specific advice or anecdotes about medical tourism, please throw them my way.
posted by terretu at 5:02 AM on December 12, 2022 [35 favorites]


Watched the Mogul Chessboxing Championship match last night, put on by a bunch of streamers, gamers, & athletes. Was super entertained and there were some legit upsets too!
posted by Fizz at 5:43 AM on December 12, 2022


B) Tuesday

I'm scheduled to get a colonoscopy on Tuesday. Be glad to skip it, but I can't. Medical insurance run out 1/1/23, I'll have to start with a new provider and have no idea what or who they cover.

So looking forward to starting the prep tonight...
posted by Marky at 5:50 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


I just got back from the post office to mail all my holiday cards--before Christmas, which is a record for me! Like The Monster at the End of this Thread, I tend to be late, so a few years ago, I switched to New Year's cards to give myself more time. I'm thinking of sending everyone Valentines next year.
posted by pangolin party at 6:25 AM on December 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


I have finally started writing the most exciting scene in my book where all the slow buildup finally pays off.

Every time I'm amazed at how well it works just to trust my "back brain" for want of a better word. The story has far too many moving parts for me to be able to plan out ALL the threads and moments ahead of time.

I just map out the main story beats and try to ignore the fact that I have no idea how x character is going to know about y thing, or how all the events will interact and mesh with one another.

If I try to hold that level of complexity in my head (or try to map it out in diagrams) I end up blunting everything to the most obvious and uninteresting solutions. My RAM is too limited.

But if I trust that my brain is doing stuff all by itself without telling me (why am I so resistant to calling it my subconscious?) then the solutions just pop up as I write. Each thread falling into place without tangling.

I'm having some pretty brutal side effects from reducing my meds dosage, so nausea, brain zaps, and general weirdness. Auditory sensitivity too high as well.

But right now now I'm able to channel all of this into my main character who is unexpectedly inhabiting someone else's body, and getting mental input from several other people at once.

Also its raining outside, (in my world, not the story's world) with a bit of thunder. So all is well in my world.
posted by Zumbador at 6:26 AM on December 12, 2022 [13 favorites]


Staying in, as there's between 1cm and 1.5cm of snow on the ground outside which means that the transport infrastructure and network will have ground to a halt. Ah, England, in "winter".

About 4cm of snow here in South Cambridgeshire, heaviest we have had in years. Not too much in the way of traffic chaos, which is good. The three of us who were due in the office today all decided to work from home though. Maybe other people are doing the same. For our newest team member it is his first snow, he just arrived from southern India in the autumn. I'm glad he didn't decide to drive in.
posted by antiwiggle at 6:32 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


It was 36C° yesterday here.
Trade ya for some snow.
posted by signal at 6:41 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I just map out the main story beats and try to ignore the fact that I have no idea how x character is going to know about y thing, or how all the events will interact and mesh with one another.

Stephen King leaves these tasks to what he calls "the boys in the basement". That's his name for the same subconscious process you describe. It's only when you're not consciously thinking about some problems that your brain can quietly get on with solving them.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:43 AM on December 12, 2022 [10 favorites]


If I try to hold that level of complexity in my head (or try to map it out in diagrams) I end up blunting everything to the most obvious and uninteresting solutions. My RAM is too limited.

I horrified myself last week by taking down all my index cards from the corkboard, where I had my story all laid out. This was actually the second set of index cards, since the first lay-out didn't work either. (And the corkboard replaces the magnetic white-board, with its more easily-erased record of failures.) I have had diagram after diagram, chart after chart, and it may as well be biorhythm charts or something I'm putting up, because my mood feels intimately tied to how I think the book is going. So taking the cards down, admitting the story wasn't working at all, felt pretty bleak. I write in Scrivener, and for this project I'm labeling story plot notes in red. By my count, I've got...thirty-four documents full of proposed outlines, ideas, story sketches? A lot of those are along the lines of, every prior version of this story was wrong, but NOW I understand what I must do! This much irony isn't good for the brain.

I've been working on this thing since February, and for me at least, that's a really long time to be working on something, especially to have so little to show for it. All these words and they're all the wrong words. Never in the history of the English language has so much effort been expended to so little result.

Anyway. New day, new red plot document. Now I understand what I must do.
posted by mittens at 6:45 AM on December 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


So... good news/bad news, early holiday celebration edition.

Good news was the celebration itself. I got together with a branch of the family that I hadn't seen for a while. I thought that I might have alienated the person who organized it during the years when my alcoholism was particularly dire, but I got caught up with what's been going on in their life, and, without going into too much detail, their mental health issues really put my own problems into perspective; they included extensive brain meds roulette, where you take one med to deal with the main problem and then that causes side effects which require another med, &c., &c., and it sure made me glad that my issues are mostly dealt with by regular doses of meetings with lashings of the Serenity Prayer on the side. Really a great time was had by all.

The not-so-good news involved another family member who wanted to attend this get-together, but had a recurrent health problem flare up, and by "flare up" I mean "had to have emergency surgery early Sunday morning." They pulled through it and are conscious and now figuring out how they're going to travel back home and all that, but it was a bit of a scare there for a while. We talk about the Attitude of Gratitude in the program a lot, and that's what I'm running on right now.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:45 AM on December 12, 2022 [9 favorites]


Going to finish reading Book 1 of the Golden Compass / His Dark Materials to the kids tonight. I’m anxious to see if they want to continue to Book 2 or jump to another story. If we jump, I’m hoping I can pull them into Tolkien’s world.
posted by johnxlibris at 6:50 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Out of the blue, I have been very emotional without any obvious cause since first thing Saturday. Today is Monday.

At first it was lovely emotions, listening to music, a piece my old Mum loved and very moved, all very positive if, on reflection, intense.

Now I am suffused with sadness and somewhat tired.

Sadness like a prickly warm not entirely uncomfortable blanket.... accompanied by a a slight tension in the chest...

Usually, I am pretty upbeat and optimistic, especially after the light of day cuts thru the tangled thicket of dark thoughts, shame and regret, woven in my just-before-waking dreams.

What to do? Endlessly speculate as to cause? Maybe not. Sit it out? Hmmm...not sure. Not a big one for white knuckling anything.

Embrace it, Rumi style? Yes. Sounds about right.

Here goes.

Today, I am sad. Head to toe. So be it. Welcome sadness. Sit down, make yourself at home. I’ll put the kettle on.
posted by dutchrick at 6:54 AM on December 12, 2022 [11 favorites]


I am spending a week and a half invigilating exams at my old university. As students come into the examination halls, there’s a few announcements before they begin writing — please turn off any electronic devices; nothing on their desks but exam materials; once they are seated, please don’t talk to other students, etc. Apart from that, they get peace and quiet to write, and the only announcements during the exam is a single reminder that there are fifteen minutes remaining. Very rarely, say 5% of the time, a course instructor will ask us to let them know that there is a typo in question #28 or something and it should read thus.

During the first of my two exams on Saturday, I noticed one of my fellow invigilators make an an announcement that there was thirty minutes remaining, and I thought he must have misunderstood the fifteen-minute warning. Indeed, as two different exams were being written in the same hall, he told the students writing the two-hour exam they had thirty minutes, and the students writing the 2.5-hour exam that they had an hour left.

A minor blunder, I thought, but then he gave them all the warning for 15 or 45 minutes (respectively), then 10 or 40 minutes, 5 or 35 minutes, and 1 or 31 minutes. Then came the final, “Your time is up, please stop writing,” with an addendum of “and you folks there have thirty minutes left.” The people writing the longer exam then got additional reminders at 15, 10, 5, and 1 minute remaining. Incidentally, every exam hall has a sizeable digital clock on the wall in plain view of all the students.

As this was my first exam back in this session, I checked the little script we have for the announcements to see if there had been some late change (I’ve been doing these for the better party of a decade, and it’s always been the fifteen-minute one only). Nope, no change.

I told the guy after maybe the third announcement that he need not do these, and he was only distracting students unnecessarily. He grinned and said, “I like to add some drama to it.” Yeah, you’re setting up hundreds of people to complain that they were interrupted unnecessarily and to have the exam results called into question. Any complaint can lead to this dude getting to defend his new approach in front of a university tribunal.

After the students had all filed out, and as we were collecting the completed exams, I actually got to talk to him for more than a second (I had been sent to a differing room early on but was relocated ten minutes in as they were short-handed here). I didn’t bring up the announcements issue again but just introduced myself as we hadn’t met previously. He returned it with, “Hi, I am Glenn, but people mostly call me Asshole.” An odd thing to be proud of, but I can hazard a guess why, based on my brief acquaintance.

So: that is the first exam, where I am a lowly invigilator. Second exam of the day, I am the presider, running the show, and overseeing a half-dozen invigilators. Same venue and there are maybe four of us who worked the earlier exam still around for the second. Also, same set-up with some exams being two hours some two-and-a-half. Glenn Asshole has gone home for the day. To my great surprise, one of the other holdovers from the earlier exam makes the thirty-minute/one-hour announcement. I ask her not to do this, but she tells me, “They did it in the earlier one.” Fantastic.

Then, of her own accord, she proceeds with the rest of the series over the next hour, despite my asking her not to. Brilliant.

I am in doing exams again later today. I can bring this situation up with the people running the whole show and I am pretty certain I will hear, “Oh, if someone does that, just speak to them to clarify that we don’t do this.” Tried that, but that approach assumes people are adults and acting in good faith.

And this has been a tiny slice of the “How Norms Are Being Discarded These Days.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:57 AM on December 12, 2022 [20 favorites]


then emerges 210 years

Fallout 4 had some indications that they planned a much earlier timeline, but changed somewhere relatively early in development. Or perhaps some of the quest writers just didn't know about the 200 year time span.
posted by SunSnork at 6:57 AM on December 12, 2022


I've been playing open world survive-o-craft game SCUM lately and I felt I should note for posterity that, now that the devs have very recently added freeform base building, I have done the most important thing I can do in any game with freeform base building, which is build a three-story Menger sponge out of logs and sticks and twine.
posted by cortex at 7:03 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Spent some time this weekend starting the moving process from Twitter to Mastodon. I’ve gone with mstdn.social for now. I’m giving it about 2 weeks before I deactivate my old accounts and purge it.
posted by interogative mood at 7:20 AM on December 12, 2022


The domestic violence program I volunteer with is finally back to in-person work since March 2020. I've been doing remote advocacy (phone) work for the last 18 months, but going back in person this weekend was...amazing. Being back in-service with people I haven't seen face to face for so long, who were genuinely happy to see us (me, and the program)....I was alternately giddy and overwhelmed. I knew I was missing it, but didn't realize just what a hole there was in my life.

And, most importantly, I got to do good service work.

/Contended sigh.
posted by Gorgik at 7:22 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Because I think no matter what happens, you will need to hear it now and then - YAY TERRETU!!!!!!

...I am ahead of the game Christmas-prep-wise; the bulk of my presents made it into the mail Saturday, and are winging their way to various family. I have finished shopping for everything, and I have just two friends' gifts to get into the mail; I'm going to cheat and print up prepaid labels at home, and then bring them to work and toss them in with the outgoing mail at work (I'll pay for it at home, this will just save me having to bring it to a post office). I still have to do the MeFi card swap cards, but that will be over the course of the coming week. The office Christmas Party is Friday, and I have my Secret Santa gift all bought and wrapped, and I have my office party outfit all picked out. I even have an appointment to get my nails done. My family is doing its every-other-year thing where we all do a day trip into Rhode Island after Christmas instead of all of us gathering, so I don't have to pack or anything.

And yet nevertheless, today I feel ridiculously scattered and I don't know why. I bought the ingredients for fudge this weekend, but it's been sitting in a bag on the floor of my living room for the past two days because I couldn't be arsed to do anything with it. I haven't put up much in the way of decorations because it feels like too much bother. I just want to sleep for a week.

...Part of it is my roommate has been a bit of a homebody the past couple weekends, and - you just want the space to yourself now and then, you know? But an even bigger part of it is that I realized I haven't really given myself a vacation in about 2 years.

But: the roommate is trying to figure out how to travel for Christmas (going home isn't in the cards for him, and he's trying to figure out an alternative), which would get him out...and I've taken the whole week off between Christmas and New Year's. And the way our holiday schedule shakes out, that means that I walk out the door at the end of the 23rd....and I wouldn't be back in the office until January 3rd.

If I am lucky, this means that I could get several days of absolute solitude, especially on Christmas where I will make a wonderful dinner of swordfish, and I can blast the barking dog Jingle Bells if I want as loud as I want and get up early if I feel like it and not worry about waking the roommate up, and leave messes about the house, or I can sleep late if that's what I want to do and stay in jammies all day, or get up early and go out to a museum on a Tuesday because it's less crowded, or whatever. I will have the one day that's the day trip to Rhode Island, but I can do that in my sleep, and traveling after Christmas means I may even be able to use reward points on Amtrak.

It'll just be a great big slap on the "pause" button for ten days and holy God I need that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:23 AM on December 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


I'm having a weird year holiday wise in that I will be traveling on both Christmas and New Year's, in fact spending Christmas Eve and NYE in hotels in Amarillo of all places. I will be completely alone on Christmas Eve, which is...fine actually. I have done most of the holiday stuff I wanted to do and have nowhere I need to be. My daughter will be with me NYE and neither of us much cares about that holiday.

Quiet holidays are good. You can see loved ones on adjacent days and get your fill of cheer.
posted by emjaybee at 7:31 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I overcommitted on making crochet gifts this year. I ordered some supplies from a place called Lovecrafts, which is cute and all, but apparently they're shipping from the planet Yuggoth and I am not going to get what I need in time. Got to use what I can. But I just learned I will get to see a baby cousin for the first time and maybe the only time until Lord knows when, considering she's on the opposite coast, so I'd really like her to have something special. When I was little, I had a pretty printed baby handkerchief that was a security item. It was a present from Japan, from a friend of a friend of my parents that none of us ever saw again, but I remembered her fondly for that reason.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:44 AM on December 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


When I came down with Flu B last week, a coworker informed me that that's the version all the cool people, the social media influencers, etc. were getting this season.

It was not cool.

Not recommended.
posted by Naberius at 7:49 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Just got back from a week in Gothenburg Sweden, where it is was overcast and gloomy and cold.

But the entire city was decorated for the holiday: lights on the buildings, candles in the windows and paper stars everywhere. It was lightly snowing, very hygge, and I feel like I already have Christmas checked off my list for the year. I just wish my family could have joined me on the trip.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:55 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Been a weird/annoying past week. A messed-up Microsoft Store order (fixed now, sort of), a new Xbox wireless controller that doesn't want to play nice with my new PC (have resorted to using it wired), and curtains that have shrunk in the wash and are now too short for my patio doors (they weren't easy to find in that size, either!). As for the last bit, I've ordered some extra wide fabric to make new curtains myself. It's been awhile since I made curtains, but it's only one pair this time instead of a half-dozen or so, so that part should hopefully not be too annoying (knock on wood).

(Sorry for all the parentheses!)

Made a Key lime cake, minus zest and with no frosting, last night and it turned out well, especially after cutting the sugar down to 1 1/2 cups. May reduce it further to 1 1/3 cups the next time I make it. It's good, but still a tiny bit too sweet, I think.

One of my projects for over the holidays: writing down all of my favorite scattered-about online recipes onto cards.
posted by May Kasahara at 8:03 AM on December 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


I had been very anxious about getting a phone call from my family doctor about an lower back MRI I had done at the beginning of the month. Since my experience with healthcare has been of the "no news is good news, I assure you" variety, my anxiety spiked when I was told my doctor needed to talk to me about my results. Of course, when one has a faulty brain, it goes off the fucking rails with fear.

Turns out that my fourth and fifth lumbar spine vertebrae have slightly degenerated but with physio and strength training, I should be able to avoid being a candidate for surgery. I mean, that kind of sucks but it is suckage I will take it over the other possibilities my very excitable brain had created. (My brain loves health disaster scenarios and has done for much of my 46 years; thank god for Lexapro.)
posted by Kitteh at 8:05 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


We went into Harvard Square for the first time in quite a while on Saturday, and were surprised and disappointed by all the change. I know people have been saying Harvard Square is going to hell since sometime in the 1630s, but they're not wrong. We did have some excellent ramen, though, and bought some stuff at Cardullo's and at Leavett & Peirce, so some things are still the same.
posted by briank at 8:12 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


my anxiety spiked when I was told my doctor needed to talk to me about my results.

In for a prenatal scan because the standard one was inconclusive. Anxiety is high. Scanning process took an hour. Higher. Waited another hour while they reviewed the scans. Even higher. Then the resident came by and said that we needed to wait for the attending to discuss the results. Panicking. Then they say that they need to wait for a conference room to open up so we can sit down for the discussion. 25 minutes later, a room opens, and we quietly shuffle in. We all sit down. The resident looks at us, and calmly says, "Everything is fine. Have a good day!" The doctors walk out. We're too relieved by the results to complain about the process....
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:18 AM on December 12, 2022 [7 favorites]


Why Henry Hill? Is he in federal protection in the tags?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:22 AM on December 12, 2022


So let's get this straight, the main character/player from Fallout 4 goes into cryosleep and then emerges 210 years later after an atomic bomb dropped but bones and skeletons and clothing of people who died during the blast are still somehow just laying around?

That's Bethesda's "Mile wide, inch deep", "Let's not actually think through the consequences" design philosophy. This is a world where you have people running storefronts out of old abandoned truck stops but who haven't bothered to clear the skeletons out of the diner booths in 200 years.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:36 AM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


I occasionally dwell on the passing years and how old are people I think of as being young. Mostly it is family and friends whose names would mean nothing to Mefites (I recall my niece Elizabeth starting kindergarten; she is now in the final year of her doctorate), but celebrities occasionally come up as well. Paul Rudd, for example, is now 53, the same age Abe Vigoda was when Barney Miller started. Yestereven it came to me that the two child actors who played the kids of John McClane in Die Hard are now in their forties, or a good decade older than Bruce Willis was when he made the movie.

Oof.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:39 AM on December 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


Re: Bethesda.

I've filed this away in the same drawer as the questions on who keeps all the dungeon torches lit in Skyrim.
posted by Harald74 at 8:42 AM on December 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


This weekend a friend came up with the fun idea of inserting snakes species names or words associated with snakes into book titles. Below are the ones we came up with. I thought Mefites might be interested in adding to the list, or maybe y'all would prefer song or movie titles. Either way, have fun!

David Copperhead
Madame Boavary
Anaconda Karenina
The Jungle Boak
The Great Gartersby
Mamba Dick
War and Hiss
Adder in the Rye
Crime and Pythonment
The Defang Comedy (by Dante)
Asp-22
Slithering Heights
The Da Venom Code
The Hisshiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Three Moccasinteers
Serpentwolf (by Herman Hesse)
Little Vermin
Love in the Time of Cobra
Hissi Longstocking
Tarzan of the Asps
For Whom the Ball Tolls
To Kill a Moccasinbird
Gaboon With the Wind
Fang Eyre
The Serpent Also Rises
Fear and Slithering in Las Vegas
A Portrait of the Adder as a Young Man
The Coiler Purple
Fangst (by Goethe)
Hiss of the d'Urbervilles
The Coral-bury Tales
Boomslang of the Vanities
The Coral of the Wild
Alice's Adventures in Mambaland
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:52 AM on December 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


Madame Boavary

Totally not about snakes, but this reminds me of something...

So, I have told the story before about how during my second date with an old boyfriend, I suddenly had an attack of ovarian torsion, and he responded by whisking me off to the hospital, staying there with me the whole nine hours I was being examined, calling my parents to tell them the news when I was finally diagnosed and was being brought into surgery, and then putting me up for a week after I was discharged.

Well: his original plan for that weekend involved our second date that Friday, followed by maybe (if he got lucky) me crashing there overnight and then we'd part ways Saturday, and then he was going to have brunch with some guy friends that Sunday. When things got upended he had to back out, of course; and when they later caught up (and we were well and truly A Couple, because you can't not be after that), he told them the whole story.

But it was still another couple months before I met The Guys. R told me he'd told them what happened, but that was a couple months ago and they were eager to meet me for my own sake. However - when we walked into the party we were attending, after a few minutes of R greeting everyone and me hovering shyly by the door, one of his friends broke away from the group and walked over to me with a huge grin and crowed, "And you must be Ovary Girl!" We all cracked up - me along with them, I should add - and I was dubbed "O.G." by my boyfriend's friends thenceforward.

...R and I only dated for a year, but then stayed friends after, and I kept occasionally meeting up with him and His Gang. And one afternoon we were all at a barbecue or something, and someone else at the party asked why everyone was calling me "O.G.". The guy who dubbed me "Ovary Girl" teamed up with me to tell him the whole story. He listened, marveling at it all. ....But then when we'd finished, he just hesitated, then turned to the other guy and said, "So....calling her 'Madame Ovary' didn't occur to you?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:09 AM on December 12, 2022 [18 favorites]


This is a world where you have people running storefronts out of old abandoned truck stops but who haven't bothered to clear the skeletons out of the diner booths in 200 years.

Welcome to Chili's!
posted by Fizz at 9:28 AM on December 12, 2022 [7 favorites]


I was reading something and it dawned on me that in English we often add an ’s’ to nouns to make them plural but also add an ’s’ to verbs to make them singular.

Example:

The dogs bark at night.
The dog barks at night.

People who learn English as a second language are fighting a tough battle.

Thank you for coming to my (free) Ted Talk.
posted by tommasz at 9:35 AM on December 12, 2022 [7 favorites]


If I try to hold that level of complexity in my head (or try to map it out in diagrams) I end up blunting everything to the most obvious and uninteresting solutions. My RAM is too limited.

Zumbador I have been struggling with this too! I have a story board of post-its on a white board, but yesterday I also broke one section down into chapters, so I can tackle smaller bits at a time...we'll see how that works!
posted by supermedusa at 10:13 AM on December 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Well I turned my free thread comment into a fpp.

Kid home sick from preschool. Preschool closed because the teachers are sick. I'm going to mask in public until spring.
posted by Catblack at 10:16 AM on December 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm sitting in my company's Open Enrollment meeting right now. We're being congratulated for consuming so little healthcare this year and reminded to comparison shop before going to the doctor.

It makes me want to break my legs out of spite, but I don't want to have to pay the copay and crutch rental.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 10:18 AM on December 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


"So....calling her 'Madame Ovary' didn't occur to you?"

That is hysterical, EC!

I'm cold. I have gone to our farm to prepare for Christmas, and the geothermal heating can simply not keep up with the cold. I have lit a fire, but it only warms the living room, the kitchen and bathrooms and bedrooms are about 12 - 14 C. Maybe I should buy or rent an industrial space heater before the others arrive, I think if I can warm the house through, the system can catch up. Ideas/tips are welcome. Since we get all our electricity from renewables, a space heater will be more sustainable than burning wood, though we have the wood.

Anyway, that means I am not achieving much, because I am just sitting under a mountain of woolen and fleece blankets, near the fire. Also, I can do very little after 4 PM, when the sun goes down. Which just underlines that it was a good idea I came up here in advance, because if that is the speed I'm going to work at up to Christmas, I need lots of extra time.

Today when there was daylight I went for a long car ride to get an organic goose I have ordered long in advance. The avian flu thing means there is a shortage and it was insanely expensive. But we have decided to cut down on the gifts this year. I love eating goose, and cooking goose. I'm going to stuff it with oranges, apples and prunes and slow roast it. Normally if we are many, there are two different roasts since not everyone loves goose as much as I do. The not-goose has been duck or a porchetta other years, but this year, by popular demand, apart from the normal sides there will be a vegetarian main or two, because of the climate and biodiversity crises (though we always had free-range organic roasts). We haven't quite decided on what those mains will be. Here again, ideas are welcome. We don't eat processed meat substitutes except tofu, and I have a nut allergy, though it isn't severe.

The cold and snow means the wildlife are coming closer, looking for any scraps that might have spilled from the waste bin or plants that are still living in the relative protection from the buildings. It is amazing to see all the tracks from different animals in the snow. I feel there are more this year than before, but that might be because there is less snowfall this year. I've bought a bag of apples for the deer, because I can see they have been gathering under the apple tree. I think before I leave, I'm going to put out the remaining goose fat from last year for whoever wants it (I don't want the dog to eat it, which is why I'll wait till he is in the car). The only big carnivores we have are wolves, and they are not going to begin coming too close to the house like bears seem to do.
posted by mumimor at 10:20 AM on December 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


muminor if you have access to the right ingredients a veggie lasagna could be a nice additional main.
posted by supermedusa at 10:27 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm playing through FO4 right now thanks to my new Steam Deck gift to myself and my first thought was in 200 years, so much of this stuff would have disintegrated or been scavenged into nothingness. Plus, they must be running low on nuclear fallout, end of the world 40's-60's songs for their radio stations. :)

I lost a vet appointment disagreement with my 9.5 year old male cat who lives under the bed because he is scared of the dogs. He tagged me pretty good with a couple of deep bites that required cleaning, irrigation, antibiotics and wrapping. Swelling is finally almost all the way down after 4 days.

Wife and I have talked about rehoming him - not because of the bites, that was my own fault - but because hiding under the bed and being afraid all the time isn't a good way for him to live. It feels like it would be better to get him somewhere he feels safe. (His sister isn't perturbed by the dogs one bit) But then I realize - I have no clue how to go about rehoming a cat and as an animal advocate I feel like such a failure with this. Am I wanting to get him somewhere else for his own good or because it's easier for me not to have to deal with it?
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:35 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


"So....calling her 'Madame Ovary' didn't occur to you?"

That is hysterical, EC!


I see what you did there.
posted by briank at 10:36 AM on December 12, 2022 [8 favorites]


I am almost done the Mighty Basement Post-Partner-Death Cleansing Process. Today I took the shower chair the hospice gave us*, plus my late spouse's computers (yes, I wiped them) and a few more things, all to the dump. On my local Facebook Buy Nothing group, I have offered what I think is the last real prize, a mighty pencil sharpener and some fancy pencils. After that is gone, I will give away the vast stash of storage containers. Then the Underneath of my house will be quiet.

Yes, since Mr. Peach died, I have been obsessing about the basement, and about cutting costs, and about figuring out how to eat when I don't have to feed anyone but myself. I have a sort of self-invited house guest on Saturday night, which I am dreading because said house guest is socially awkward and high maintenance, and after that . . .

After that? I don't know what after that. I suspect that when the basement is clean and the house guest has gone their way, it will be okay to start writing again.

It will be three months next Monday since he died.**

*The hospice had all kinds of things delivered to us, which is why the basement was so impassable and such an acute problem, but the hospital furniture company took almost all the furniture away right after Mr. Peach died, except for the shower chair. I have called three times to ask for it to be picked up, and the last time I was told it had already been picked up. It had not. It was squatting in all its hideous plasticity in my basement. I looked at it, took the label off it, and took it to the dump because it is a horrid piece of bad plastic.
**Please get your colonoscopies before you are already Stage 4.

posted by Peach at 11:08 AM on December 12, 2022 [20 favorites]


Am I wanting to get him somewhere else for his own good or because it's easier for me not to have to deal with it?

I'm just some idiot on the internet but can't it be both? It sounds like it's better for both the cat and the people.
posted by axiom at 11:22 AM on December 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


So we got to be part of a “ feel good story” this week. The shelter I volunteer w asked for help-the open intake shelter in Chicago scanned a stray’s microchip and discovered that a) family was in NM and b) she’d been missing for three years. We got to foster her for a week while logistics were arranged, original plans fell through, then the second planned trip got bumped up a week at the last minute. So we ended up driving from IL to Iowa, handed Harley off the the drivers from the NM shelter who drove straight through to bring her back to her family, and got a dozen other dogs in return to bring back the the IL shelter. Surreal.
posted by jacy at 11:24 AM on December 12, 2022 [11 favorites]


Axiom, it certainly can be, but boy does that mess with childhood binary black/white catholic brain. :)
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:43 AM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I did a fuckton of shopping the last two days, so four people have been officially Gifted and Done, I think. I just came from the office party, which was pleasant, killed three hours of work time, and I got a bowling game.

invigilating

I have never heard of this word before, I think we just call that "proctoring" here.

"He returned it with, “Hi, I am Glenn, but people mostly call me Asshole.” An odd thing to be proud of, but I can hazard a guess why, based on my brief acquaintance."

The fact that he introduces himself like this and is proud of it also tells you something, doesn't it.

I overcommitted on making crochet gifts this year. I ordered some supplies from a place called Lovecrafts, which is cute and all, but apparently they're shipping from the planet Yuggoth and I am not going to get what I need in time.

Hm, I didn't have issues with them when I used them earlier this year, but it is December. (I note that it says they ship from St. Louis. I think I was expecting worse from reading that!)

I just got asked to do the light board for Cabaret. I can do almost all of it, but not the first three days of their tech week because hotel room has been booked for those days already. I told him this and he said "let me think," so I dunno there. They are bringing back the "New Year's Eve Gala" (which I was already planning on going to before this, so hey, I guess that's a free ticket if I work), but it doesn't look like a lot of people have bought tickets for it, which makes me wonder if it's going to go on in the first place. Some things just aren't coming back so much in the new pandemic era, and a big ol' eating buffet may be one of them. So if it doesn't run, then they don't open a week early and NBD. I dunno here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:50 AM on December 12, 2022


Canadians invigilate, Americans proctor.
posted by Jeanne at 12:00 PM on December 12, 2022


Ladies glow.
posted by Naberius at 12:08 PM on December 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


Canadians invigilate, Americans proctor.

I don't know if it's that clear cut; I used to be asked to proctor for winter exams by Queen's University here in Kingston, Ontario when a friend worked for the Faculty of Law. It was a great way to get some extra money during the holidays!
posted by Kitteh at 12:18 PM on December 12, 2022


I quite like "invigilate". has "vigil" at the middle, which helps make the word make sense. Is it pronounced with a hard or soft g?

I double dosed myself on my anti-anxiety med by accident this morning and am now sweating and overheating which is weird but will pass. Also went out to run errands and was gripped by the exact same anxieties I've been taking these pills for and I'm thinking maybe they're doing nothing for me.
posted by hippybear at 12:58 PM on December 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Muimor, mayhe you can melt the goose fat and blend it, them mix in bird seed for seed and fat feeds for birds.

It feels like it could snow in this so cal town today. I got at least a couple of illnesses, (but not covid,) more than a week and a half ago. Still not out of the woods yet. Calling off the holidays, staying home. But, look up the horror which is known as mashed potato salad. I just heard of it today, and watched a couple of recipes, it's a Southern thing. I bought, for the first time in my adult life, instant mashed potatoes. Just one packet, of Ore Ida 4 Cheese, for $1.18. They were good, and temptingly simple. I have actual organic potatoes, sitting right in my kitchen. I have to put that Ore Idea away.

I tasted the first of the dry salted olives I am putting up. I think in a week, they might be ready. The other two gallons of water and brine cured, are a ways off. I Iove gathering and preserving food. I think I am going to put in a special application, to move to the past.

I have questions, such as why is the Himalayan pink salt, out of Pakistan, radioactive? It is enough so, it is not recommended for canning.
posted by Oyéah at 1:39 PM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Over the weekend I did some rainy day camping in Morro Bay, which was mostly delightful.

Whenever I go on a road trip I send my wife the worst song I heard on the radio that trip. Two trips ago it was Johnny Get Angry. The trip after that was the 9/11 version of the DJ Sammy cover of Heaven (holy fucking shit, why though?). This trip it was A Christmas Hallelujah, which I somehow found more baffling and off-putting than the other two combined.

It’s a good road trip game that you can play in the car by yourself.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:42 PM on December 12, 2022


Re: inserting snake words in book/song/movie titles, one from my friend:

Venom Man Loves a Woman
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:47 PM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


I used to care lots of giving individually targeted presents, but then stopped giving a shit.

But a 3.5 yo nephew will do things to a person.

I repurposed a 25-day "advent" cosmetics set that I got for myself and started early on into an "advent" box starting on Dec 24th (the family dinner) and filled each day with a LEGO minifig (sealed in pouch) or small LEGO set, rounding out some of the days with a notebook and metallic coloured pens, some fossils.
posted by porpoise at 2:17 PM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


It's going to be a strange Christmas, with the family all over the place. We moved my mother into a home in the summer; oldest son's fiancee has had a sudden death in the family so they are going to be involved there; middle son is in New York, and daughter is going out to visit him. And so, for the first time in about 30 years, Mrs. 43rd and I have Christmas on our own and (worse!) no-one to cook for.

And we're in the process (I hope nearing completion) of selling the family home, which means taking time out to clear the stuff. My God, so much stuff. But I guess that's what happens if you live in the same house for 60 years.

I'd known my father collected books, but I'd never really known much about them. He was rather reserved and I was a self-absorbed teenager, so we never communicated about much. But the books... well over 1500 of them. He had many interests: the 300 or so mountaineering books have mainly gone to the Alpine Club, but then there's the industrial and social history (The Ironfounders of Coalbrookdale, Buddhist Villages of the Himalaya, A History of Town Planning in England), art (nearly 100 large format art books), jazz (record company catalogs from the 1950s), opera, photography and design, English history, gardening, cooking, a lot of books on Wales (many in Welsh). Oh, and all the ephemera. And 35mm slides, about 1000 of them, some of which I'll digitize for posterity (and remote relatives).

And I've now found several books that seem to be first editions (first edition "Under Milk Wood", anyone?) so I'm having to do some research to see exactly what we have.

So yes, a rather different Christmas to any I can remember!
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 2:28 PM on December 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


Oyéah, here's some background that might be explanatory about pink salt:

1. Potassium has a naturally-occurring radioactive isotope, a trace of which is mixed in all over the planet

2. Because potassium is vital to us and other living things, a lot of food has this trace of radiation; normal ingestion is smaller than other background sources though.

3. Himalayan pink salt is an ancient dried seabed (!! with geology complications). Seas collect everything soluble that washes out of land ecosystems, including salt and potassium. This particular seabed might have had more potassium than most.

And still I don't know if Himalayan pink salt is more radioactive than banana peels! Seems to me you'd get cloudy pickles, though, which my grandmother was Against.
posted by clew at 2:32 PM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


porpoise, the nearly 3 yo grandchild gets a different Matchbox car every time he comes over to his grandmother’s house and I have NO SHAME.
posted by Peach at 2:56 PM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Am I wanting to get him somewhere else for his own good or because it's easier for me not to have to deal with it?

I mean, it sounds like it'd be good for both of you--he'd be living somewhere else where he's not hiding under the bed all the time, and you'd be less stressed because you knew he'd be happier.

I haven't had to rehome a cat for a while, but I'd start by checking your local area to see if there are any cat rescues, non-kill shelters, or cat fostering agencies that might be able to take him or at least advise you.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:34 PM on December 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


So for a good part of the day yesterday and today I felt scattered and at loose ends, and I wasn't sure why. And then when I emailed my family in passing to find out when our Post-Christmas Day Trip Hangout was going to be, Dad emailed back that "oh, shit, sorry, we actually realized we were just going to skip that altogether this year to make it easy on everyone." They'd forgotten to let me know.

Which is actually empirically fine - but my initial thought is "oh crap I could have gotten their present in the mail the other day but now I need to find the time to do that and aaaaaaaaaaah" - and the anxiety started to amp up.

But. I recognize this feeling from my theater days: this is a feeling I got into about midway through every rehearsal period where there were just too many moving parts (for reasons beyond anyone's control, because in many ways it was still too early), and I was desperately looking for some kind of Known Thing I could point to and say "everything else is chaos but This Is Orderly, Amen." Usually I would end up setting up the prop table - this is the table backstage where all the hand props have to be kept, and was something I had to do anyway, and it called for a lot of sorting and organizing and plotting and then implementing that plan, and it became a weird sort of security blanket because everything was logged and categorized and labeled and nice and neat and orderly and settled, so when the lights were still a mess I could secretly look over at that nice neat prop table and heave a sigh of relief that at least ONE thing was settled.

So I am trying to use Stage Manager Brain on this - I asked my roommate his schedule from now through the end of the month, I am going to compare that to my own schedule, and make a list of tasks I need to do and things I just WANT to do, and assign A Thing To Do to each day of the year from now through January 1st. That way, if I suddenly get hit with some crazy shit at work, I can just look at that schedule and be secure that I at least know that Today I Am Cleaning The Fridge or whatever.

(This Schedule, just like the Prop Table, is subject to change of course. But I tend to be okay with Changes To The Plan, as I am with Changes To The Prop Table. They just have to exist.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:58 PM on December 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Against Cloudy Pickles, a novel of resilience, refinement, dedication to quiet perfection, in the kitchen of bygone days.

Killer Mushroom Casseroles, a novel of resistance, excellence, execution, in contemporary Ukranian kitchens.

Berry Pies to Paralyze, also from contemporary Ukrainian kitchens.

I just want to add to the chorus....Booooo!
posted by Oyéah at 4:52 PM on December 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Against Cloudy Pickles, a novel of resilience, refinement, dedication to quiet perfection, in the kitchen of bygone days.

Also, a good sockpuppet name.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:32 PM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Generally I start Christmas shopping...whenever. I keep a box under my bed for things I pick up through the year. But this year I did quite a bit of online shopping. My couch looked like a delivery van had tipped over for a while.

My last day off I wrapped IT ALL, mainly because I'd forgotten exactly what I'd gotten and needed to make a check list, ha ha. And now my kitchen table looks like Santa's sled tipped over.

When I'm not stressed at work, and have time to just be, I look around at where I am now, and I can't believe how happy I am. Some times you just don't realize how much of a rollercoaster you'd been on until it all levels out, you know?

Knocking wood that this levelness continues!
posted by annieb at 6:13 PM on December 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


The Bruges Garter Snake Book seems like it's simultaneously too obscure and too obvious.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:14 PM on December 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


The holidays fill me with dread. My brain struggles with the extra overhead of making lists, social obligations, travel, buying presents, and remembering thank you cards. It builds into a huge amount of anxiety and seems to make me into an ill tempered bugbear, easily rattled and unable to complete even simple tasks. I’ve tried to improve, and resolve it with therapy and medication; but it has not gotten better. Every year I feel friends and family grow more distant as I am carried away by a river of anxiety and resulting anti-social anti-patterns. I regret all the ways I’ve disappointed those who matter to me. Yet I maintain a stubborn faith that this will pass. I am determined to see it through. One day maybe there will be a happy holiday for me.
posted by interogative mood at 7:42 PM on December 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


My grief counselor told me I was allowed to reinvent the holidays entirely. He said I could take a trip, decide not to celebrate, or make new traditions. I haven't done anything extremely different, but somehow the anxiety this year has faded considerably.
posted by Peach at 8:27 PM on December 12, 2022 [9 favorites]


"He returned it with, “Hi, I am Glenn, but people mostly call me Asshole.” An odd thing to be proud of, but I can hazard a guess why, based on my brief acquaintance."

The fact that he introduces himself like this and is proud of it also tells you something, doesn't it.


Indeed.

A sequel to the tale: this stuff all happened on Saturday. No exams Sunday. Monday, today, I called up my cousin who works for the university. I work exams twice a year (in non-pandemic times, that is, when they have in-person exams). As I am on campus for a week, this is our best chance to get together for lunch.

After we arranged a time and date, I said, “Hey, got a sec?” She did, and I told her the Tale O’ Glenn, mostly as “here’s a funny thing that happened.” It was not because I want Glenn canned or anything, but I did want him to do the job assigned. She listened closely, agreed he should not be making random announcements as he saw fit, and mentioned she had a meeting shortly anyway with the Senior Associate Registrar and would pass this on as what a little bird has told her.

I got a text an hour later:
The senior associate registrar was going over to the exams already, so when she gets there she will make sure everyone knows not to interrupt the exams with the multiple time warnings, just the standard 15 minutes one. She was very appreciative that someone said something so she could address the issue
I worked exams this afternoon and evening. I noticed in the rooms where we sign in there are now prominent notices on the big whiteboards to do the time reminder at fifteen minutes only.

But then comes the coda. When I got to my second exam, the invigilators were discussing this. I mentioned I had been there when it all began. One invigilator asked me, “Did the guy look like...?” and described him pretty accurately. I said, yes, sounds like the same fellow. “And was he named Glenn?” Yeah.

She sighed heavily that Glenn was her husband and They Had Words about his improv stylings. He had come home all proud Saturday of his great innovation and she said, yeah, you can’t do that.

Glenn doesn't yet know he is famous. Well, the last exam of the day finished an hour ago so he might well know by now.

Hippybear — soft g, like you’re recounting what happened after the first seven vigils; “In vigil eight, I noticed that...”

I think some Canadian schools call them proctors, as kitteh mentioned. For me, I like that “invigilate” is an easy anagram of “I, vigilante.”



Best part of the evening, though: after the students had all finished and everyone had gone home, I had to wait for the exam couriers to come pick up all the exams and paperwork. I sat there by myself waiting, acutely conscious that a friend of mine had offered to give me a drive home. I was grateful as it is well below freezing, and I would otherwise be looking at three infrequent bus routes. She was parked not far away, she thought, although she doesn’t know the campus that well. I didn’t want to keep her waiting too long.

In the fullness of time the courier turned up. I handed over the needful and asked him, based on her description of what she was looking at, did he know where this was? He said it didn’t sound familiar, “But I’ve got the cart, so we can go look for her.”

They do zip around campus on these little enclosed golf carts, so I got an unforeseen golf cart ride to circumnavigate the building while we tracked down my lift (she was actually parked by a different building altogether, named annoyingly for the same deep-pocketed donor).

Still, let is not cloud with irrelevancies the golden fact that I got a late-night windfall golf cart ride. That was absolutely fantastic, and in a year it will seem like maybe it was a dream I once had.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:41 PM on December 12, 2022 [12 favorites]


They do zip around campus on these little enclosed golf carts

When I was a student we called them Urban Assault Vehicles (after Bill Murray's Stripes.) Mockingly, but with a twinge of jealousy.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:46 PM on December 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Last night my I sat on my couch with all 5 my rats.

The younger 4 raced around and climbed their cardboard castle-maze, unusually energetic.

My oldest rat, Maurice, lay on my chest, tucked into my night gown, while I stroked him.

I think he must have been making little noises of pleasure that were inaudible to me, because every now and then one of the younger rats would run up onto me, push themselves in next to Maurice, and let me stroke them too.
posted by Zumbador at 8:59 PM on December 12, 2022 [12 favorites]


Good news / bad news this week. Bad news, my daughter is sick and is missing the only field trip she's likely to get this year in school (which we've already paid for, and for which mrsozzy was supposed to chaperone). She's got a fever and a cough and it sucks, but assuming she doesn't give it to us (har-har, as if) hopefully we'll still be able to make our nephew's birthday next weekend.

Good news, I mentioned in an earlier free thread that I've just started looking for voiceover work and booked a few jobs. Well, I booked my first live directed session in a few weeks, and it's a doozy: an intimate, sexy ad where I'll need to work with another actor. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. I'm excited, but super, super nervous. I'm barely an actor! How do I get into character over an audio connection with someone I've never met while a third party directs us?! And the production company is Belgian, so there's likely to be some language concerns, too. This is going to be a learning experience for sure.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:21 AM on December 13, 2022 [6 favorites]


HA

I just learned that the USPS lets you order and print prepaid shipping labels at home, and my workplace has a regular postal pickup - so I brought three of the last four packages here to work and handled the shipping here and now I don't have to pay the overinflated prices at the pack-and-ship down the block!

I still have to go tonight, I need a box for the one last package; but saving on the other packages will already be a help. Plus I get to blow the guy's mind with "check it - this is how you spell 'O'Donovan' if you're writing it in Irish!" which is actually kinda fun....one year I spelled it out verbally for the clerk at the pack-and-ship, and a couple seconds later, a guy who was sorting packages in the back room and had overheard came out to stare at me in disbelief.

....But yeah, next year I am totally forgoing the pack-and-ship and doing it all from work instead.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on December 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


My grief counselor told me I was allowed to reinvent the holidays entirely.

We did something entirely different for Thanksgiving the year my dad died (out to dinner, NO family) and it was great. I highly recommend the Do Something Different option if you can think of one.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:11 AM on December 13, 2022 [5 favorites]


My grief counselor told me I was allowed to reinvent the holidays entirely.

I allowed myself to be pressured into attending spouse's bigExtendedFamilyGathering the first Christmas after my mom died. It was awful. It is now a hilarious story, but I wish I had followed my instincts.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 7:57 AM on December 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


On Facebook, I follow my hometown's page so that I can see if there are emergency announcement that might affect my family or just anything interesting for my next visit. Yesterday, there were two posts from the mayor: one of condolence for the death of the MSU coach Mike Leach, who is only connected to our town through the shared worship of SEC football, and one of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Chik-fil-A.

(Please give me the strength not to get into a Facebook argument about that place. It's jobs! The town needs jobs. It's fine that the mayor welcomed a place owned by people who would have me and my friends executed if they could. The Zaxby's couldn't come in because of some kind of contract issue so people are just glad to see the chicken.)

Anyway, all this foolishness is not to do with whiteness, which is some comfort in a way. The mayor and the whole administration (I think) is black, and my town has given the country Rep. Bennie Thompson of the Jan. 6 committee, its finest contribution to the American people since Jim Henson. Besides, the mayor does interesting stuff. He was a delegate to COP27 to discuss the difficulties of towns on the Mississippi and posted pictures of his meetings with various people, including the King. I would have been more impressed if it was Greta, of course. But I'm glad that there is at least someone in power in town taking climate change seriously, insofar as he has funding to do so.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:19 AM on December 14, 2022


Okay, screw the pack and ship, they were gonna charge me $85 for the shipping to Ireland. I brought the package to work and did the prepaid label thing again, for only $45. Stlil a big chunk of change, but the office Shipping Guru told me that "yeah, the USPS changed its package rates because DeJoy was a nimrod and they're making up for that now in revenue" and I realized there probably was nothing to be done for it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:59 AM on December 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


Just finished - we are, as ever, behind here - series one of "Astrid: Murder in Paris", also known as "Bright Minds", or "Astrid et Raphaëlle" in France where it's made, after several colleagues and friends raved about it. And it's quickly become my favorite TV of the year.

Just watched the first two episodes of Astrid on one of the local PBS stations tonight and I was so impressed. Just before -- I only found out about it today -- the show, I texted a friend who taught autistic children fot years before the show and so was she: From the aspect of autism, well written and well acted. The neurodivergent focus group where most of the members complained about how difficult and slow neurotypicals were was a nice touch too

Through Walter Presents, PBS has staked out the high production values foreign language detective show turf with subtitles that the MHZ public network abandoned when they became a streaming service. In a microdose sort of way. I love that stuff and always want more.
posted by y2karl at 1:07 AM on December 15, 2022


Anybody want a poodle? I really can't take care of a dog right now. (To be clear, that's a joke about the post title. I don't actually have a poodle to offer. But, I'll trade you my soul and you can redeem it yourself.)

On the list of things that I was really tempted to make a post about because it was exciting, but which also doesn't really have enough content to warrant it, especially in English, I've been listening to Ryuichi Sagimoto's Back to the Basics album on endless repeat recently. It's delightfully simple and thoughtful. It's been out for years, but I just learned about it. (It reminds me of Zbignew Preisner's 10 easy pieces, which I also love. I guess I have a fondness for film composers doing playful things on a piano. (I hope those links actually work for other people. Apologies if not.)

Otherwise, life has been very complicated lately. Not entirely bad, but a bit overwhelming in many dimensions. In some ways good. It's been returning to a normal level of overwhelming recently.
posted by eotvos at 1:32 AM on December 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Denmark has a new government. This is not about the politics but about my life: now I have to start over with the stuff I was working on, as one does when working with political stuff after every election. It might be a good thing, who knows? But right now I have two screens open trying to get an overview and make a plan. Outside, the sun is shining brightly on fresh snow. I hope that is a good sign.
posted by mumimor at 2:15 AM on December 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Ooooooh! I love snow sparkle!
posted by Oyéah at 2:41 PM on December 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Oh look freeze peach absolutist Elon Musk banned @ElonJet the account that he highlighted as an example of his commitment to free speech. And just now he banned several tech reporters who had noted this. Affected journalists worked for CNN, the Washington Post, The NY Times, among others.
posted by interogative mood at 6:01 PM on December 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I just overheard what I assume are first or second year college students ending what looked like first date with the phrase, "Want to come up to my place? I have an Xbox, I know guys like that." which made me stifle a giggle. It's much less weird than me saying "would you like to come up to my place to discuss foreign films and talk about 19th century literature." But, like email scams, there is probably a natural trend toward mechanisms that allow for self selection. I don't know how it turned out. I hope everyone was happy.
posted by eotvos at 6:11 PM on December 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


So I was at the dermatologist today getting stuff looked at, and I said "Could you look at this thing on the side of my nose, please? I think it might be a wart."

She examined it, and said "That'd be an unusual location for a wart, actually."

And I said, with a completely straight face, "Well, I did dabble in witchcraft a while back."

She cracked up, I cracked up, and we both tried not to giggle for the rest of the appointment.
posted by MrVisible at 10:49 PM on December 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


you may have known that popeye had 4 nephews - you probably don't know their names

pipeye, pupeye, peepeye and poopeye

the evidence is in this 1942 cartoon

why would anyone name their kid poopeye?
posted by pyramid termite at 1:18 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]


Perhaps due to an unfortunate potty training incident?
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:22 PM on December 18, 2022


Makes me wonder if Donald Duck had a 4th nephew, named something like Gooey or Chewy, who was kept out of the cartoons.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:27 PM on December 18, 2022


or Poo-ie
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:28 PM on December 18, 2022


Ratatouille?
posted by mittens at 2:24 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]


After weeks of getting used to how the negative side effects of my medication usually kick in after about three hours and scheduling my life around said side effects accordingly, my body has decided to just. Not do that?

Which sounds good, because no side effects, but no, that's not quite right. It's no side effects so far. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, probably at very poor time for it to do so.
posted by KChasm at 11:46 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]


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