boxofdelights

moonhare posting in

First cutting for 2025!

Yummy! Not a large amount, but as these mature at different rates I wanted to cut the higher stalks before the heads opened and supplemented with the shorter ones. I might try storing some cuttings in the fridge to get larger portions; supposedly one can refrigerate these in a plastic bag for a couple of weeks.

Current Mood: pleased

rocky41_7 posting in

books

The most recent commute audiobook was The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, of The Night Circus fame (although admittedly I have not read that one yet). This is a fantasy novel about Zachary, a young man swept into the drama of a secret underground society and the mysterious figures who surround it.

I finished this book on Sunday morning, catching the last 7 minutes of a whopping 19-hour runtime over breakfast, and since then I've settled into a relative disappointment. On paper, this book has so many things that should make it an ace in the hole for me: Book lovers! Cats! Secret magical societies! Queer characters! Women who are something Other taking control of their destinies! And yet, overall, this book just did not land for me.

As is a risk, I think, with all stories that are about the power of stories, The Starless Sea comes off a little pretentious and self-important. It is a book lauding the unmatched importance of books. I felt aware at various points throughout the book of how hard it was trying to appeal to people like me, who would enjoy the idea of a dark-paneled underground room with endless books and an on-demand kitchen, and this sense of pandering did take away from it at times.

However, it also does some interesting things with regards to what it is like to be the person in a story (such as the fate of Eleanor and Simon, once their part in the story is done) as well as the risks of valuing preservation over change and growth. Without giving too much away, there is a secret society in decline, and a woman so determined to prevent its downfall that she ends up causing significant harm to the organization she's trying to save because she is unwilling to accept that an end comes for all things. I enjoyed this theme and I felt like it was echoed well throughout the story, and in many ways it's easy to sympathize with her ultimate goals, if not her methods.

( Read more... )

ribirdnerd posting in

common_nature

I saw my first garter snake and two snapping turtles near my local pond.

ambyr posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Carolyn: When I asked my daughter-in-law about their vacation destination and flight information, she asked why I wanted to know. I said if there was a crash, I would want to know that it wasn’t their flight. She asked why I was wishing their plane to crash. She also said this type of question takes away her agency.

Sharing flight information is common among my mom friends, so I was surprised. She suggested therapy to handle my anxiety.

I am now feeling very unsure about how to relate to her. She seems to make up a version of me that isn’t accurate and then respond as if that was who I am. I want to avoid conflict with her because this relationship is important to my son. How to proceed?

( Easiest: Stop asking for flight info )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Care and Feeding,

My family and I live down the block from my sister and her family. They went away for spring break to visit her in-laws and tasked my 12-year-old daughter “Blair” with feeding their tropical fish while they were gone.

The day before they were due back, Blair went over in the morning to feed the fish and discovered they were all dead. It turned out that the tank heater had failed at some point during the previous day after Blair took care of them. The problem is that my sister is blaming Blair for “killing” her fish and demanding that we pay for new ones. Blair feels terrible about what happened, but she did a temperature check of the water before she left on the last day they were alive, and the temperature was where it was supposed to be (she had been writing it down on the daily temperature log, so we know for sure), so there was no negligence on her part. I explained this to my sister, but she won’t budge. Now she says Blair and her cousins (with whom she is very close) can’t play together until we pay for new fish. My husband thinks this is outrageous, and I agree. Even so, would buying some new fish be worth it so we can put this in the rearview mirror for Blair’s sake?

—Fish Fallout

( Read more... )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Care and Feeding,

My sister had her first child when I was 18 and her second when I was 20. (She’s eight years older than I am.) She lives a little over an hour from me, and we’ve always had a good relationship. I watched the kids regularly when I was in college, working around my class schedule, and I continued to do so for many years since, during the summer and on days off from school (I am a teacher). The kids are now 16 and 18, and I have a solid relationship with both of them. I also got married and had two kids of my own.

My sister-in-law is pregnant with her first baby. When I mentioned, at a gathering of my family, the Easter-themed pajamas I had bought for the baby (in what I hope will be the right size for next year), my sister got upset.

She pointed out that I’m “already hosting her [my SIL’s] baby shower,” and complained that I was now “also buying stuff for her baby for a holiday that isn’t even a gift-giving one.” I was surprised. I told her the pajamas were on clearance and I’d picked them up on impulse because they were cute. She responded that I had never bought anything for her kids for Easter when they were young. I said that was true, I hadn’t: I had been a broke college student at the time and also not a parent myself, so my awareness of things like that was much lower. She asked if I was going to continue buying things for that child on every other non-gift holiday—“Saint Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving?” I told her I might if I happened to see something I thought was cute; I jokingly asked if she’d like me to buy matching pajamas for her kids for Halloween this year if I found them.

She got even angrier and said she hopes my SIL appreciates all that I am doing for her because not everyone gets that from their family (very clearly meaning she hadn’t gotten that from me). I told her she was right—not everyone gets $1.99 Easter pajamas for their baby. But maybe some people got years of free babysitting, often with little to no notice, instead of cheap pajamas, because that’s what I was able to give at the time. She got up and left. I tried calling and texting her; she hasn’t responded. My mother has told me that my sister has talked to her about it, that my comment had hurt her, and that I was holding the child care I had done over her head. My mother thinks I should apologize.

I have no idea where this is coming from. It’s very out-of-character for her. I can’t believe she’s jealous about a pair of pajamas (or whatever that gift represents) for another baby when I have always had/still maintain a close relationship with her children. Our brothers also have kids we are both close to, and she has never acted like this. Can I just ignore her unreasonable behavior or do I actually have to address it? I usually have a cookout and host both sides of our family around the start of summer. I’d like to be confident that my SIL won’t be the object of my sister’s wrath that day just because she has the audacity to be pregnant with my future niece or nephew. But how?

—Aunt to Others, Too

( Read more... )

helloladies posting in

ladybusiness

Di talks about science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction on her Booktube channel BookishDi and is one of the founders of the SFF book and fandom discussion show Stitch & Bitch. She can be found on BlueSky talking about books, politics, and women's sports.

On Wednesday, April 16, the UK Supreme Court issued a ruling on the legal definition of “woman” that excluded trans women. This case challenging the Equality Act was funded in large part by JK Rowling, and she celebrated the ruling with a series of disgusting, transphobic tweets. This is just her latest action to stigmatize trans women and destroy their ability to exist in public life in the UK. Coincidentally, the same day, UK based subscription box Illumicrate announced a special edition of the upcoming book, Rose in Chains by Julie Soto. This novel is based off of her hit Draco/Hermione fanfic, "The Auction", the premise of which is Voldermort winning the war and Hermione being sold into sexual slavery to Draco Malfoy. But don’t worry, he’s a good fascist and treats her well enough that she’s willing to defend the nice Nazis (I mean Death Eaters) when their actions come to trial. Plot points and names that directly identify it as HP have been changed for the trad pub release, but at its core it is still Harry Potter fanfiction.

( Read more... )

boxofdelights posting in

wiscon

WisCon May 23-25 2025, online only
A feminist sci-fi and fantasy convention
$25 or pay what you can
Visit https://wiscon2025.sched.com
Guests of honor: ANDREA HAIRSTON; NAOMI KRITZER
Want to volunteer? Email Personnel@sf3.org

( poster )

atlantablack posting in

poetry

I’ve been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite,
can stop the bleeding — most people forgot this
when the war ended. The war ended
depending on which war you mean: those we started,
before those, millenia ago and onward,
those which started me, which I lost and won —
these ever-blooming wounds.
I was built by wage. So I wage love and worse—
always another campaign to march across
a desert night for the cannon flash of your pale skin
settling in a silver lagoon of smoke at your breast.
I dismount my dark horse, bend to you there, deliver you
the hard pull of all my thirsts—
I learned Drink in a country of drought.( Read more... )

From Postcolonial Love Poem - pg 1

scissorsevered posting in

beautifulmechanical

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

stepnix posting in

indie_games

Big ol' sheet of games curated by Dominic Tarason. Several games on here I was pleasantly surprised to see, like Hat World and Ruina.

Current Mood: impressed

full_metal_ox posting in

common_nature

Taken on 16 July 2023 at 19:27 US Eastern Daylight Savings Time.

Bunnies are of course going to favor weedy green lawns over elegant stone yards punctuated with waxy sculptural ornamentals. This one looks like an Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus); Marsh Rabbits (S. palustris) (1), tend to have shorter ears, and my neighborhood strikes me as a bit too far from the water to attract them during the dry season.

It’s on alert, reacting sensibly to the arrival of a member of the deadliest of the Thousand, and so this was the only shot I was able to get before it went PATWINNNG! under the seagrape bed (the round-leaved shrub at center right, bordered by white river rocks.)

(1) Today I Learned the scientific name of the Lower Keys Marsh Rabbit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvilagus_palustris_hefneri

Yes; that Hugh Hefner funded endangered rabbit research, and was commemorated accordingly.

ranunculus posting in

common_nature

Meadowfoam and mimulus out on the Ranch in Northern California.

atlantablack posting in

poetry

I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison,
Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame.
I lock you in a form that is part music box, part meat
Grinder to separate the song of the bird from the bone.
I lock your persona in a dream-inducing sleeper hold
While your better selves watch from the bleachers.
I make you both gym & crow here. As the crow
You undergo a beautiful catharsis trapped one night
In the shadows of the gym. As the gym, the feel of crow-
Shit dropping to your floors is not unlike the stars
Falling from the pep rally posters on your walls.
I make you a box of darkness with a bird in its heart.
Voltas of acoustics, instinct & metaphor. It is not enough
To love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.

From American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin page 11

pilottttt posting in

common_nature

They have recently appeared in our city on the pond near the Japanese Garden.

( Read more... )

For more information (in Russian), see here.

Current Location: Tashkent, Uzbekistan

marycatelli posting in

books

Chancy by Louis L'Amour

Adventure in the Wild West.

( Read more... )

atlantablack posting in

poetry

The lullaby I wrote on your throat about the stained
hilt of the knife in my hand begins — Whisper, or snow
will come and make its sadness famous in your mouth.

The why of you a radiant devilfish, the what of you
a fat little soul bluing at the edges.

The surest way to receive a free ram is to tie your son’s hands
behind his back. Offer me a metaphor, God said.
Abraham stretched Isaac out on a rock, Like this?
( Read more... )

From Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod pg. 6

rocky41_7 posting in

books

Book #7 from the "Women in Translation" rec list: Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith.

Trying to accurately describe the plot of this book is an exercise in futility, so I'm not going to bother. All I can say is it centers around Ayami, a woman who is an actress, or maybe a poet, or possibly both, and is on her last day of work at an audio theater for the blind in Seoul.

This is a book I feel like I'd have to read at least one more time all the way through to be able to really discuss the themes and motifs at play. It's an incredibly cerebral novel that never gives up a clear answer about what's happening. What's real or not real changes from scene to scene. Is Ayami an orphan? Did she have a wealthy aunt? Is she the poet from Buha's youth? Is the director the bus driver? Who really got hit by the bus, and who was the murdered woman in the attic? Is Ayami Yeoni? The book leaves you to your own conclusions.

( Read more... )

puddleshark posting in

common_nature

Set off to follow the path through the oak woods in the rain. Only a gentle rain at first, not cold. Not much light this morning, but still the oaks and the birches bright with new leaves, and the woods full of the song of robins, blackbirds and thrushes.

( Come and get rained on )

full_metal_ox posting in

common_nature

I sure do!

I’m something of an astronomy nerd; you have to understand that the great solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 was something I’d been counting down to my whole life. In my native Dayton, Ohio, I’d gotten to witness the strange begrimed 40-watt sunlight (1) and dappled crescent shadows of the partial solar eclipses of 10 May 1994 and 21 August 2017, after having gotten a fleeting confirmatory glance through SolarShields under welder’s goggles: the exercise was a bit like hunting basilisks or Medusa.

Another point is that I’m acutely homesick for the seasonal markers of the place where I spent 90+% of my life: the violets and wild chives and flowering crabapples, and the two equinoctial yellows of Moraine honeylocusts: neon chartreuse foliage in the spring, and in the fall flaming saffron—turning to orange piles of cornflake crunch beneath the feet. Even the lawn weeds here are unfamiliar.

Until a couple years in advance—by which time it was too late—I had not anticipated that, by the time the total solar eclipse at long last came to Dayton, I would be gone; behold the southern Gulf Coast of Florida’s experience of the Grand Portentuous Celestial Event.

( Continue. )

Current Music: ”Snuff Out The Light”.

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Asparagus

Recent Reading: The Starless Sea

More signs of spring

Daughter-in-law bristles when asked for flight info

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Guest Post: How Illumicrate’s Platforming of "Rose in Chains" Betrays Their Values

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Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz

Klea - Tic Toc (2001)

freeware drop

Bunny caught in passing on the lawn.

Flowers

Sonnet 7 by Terrance Hayes

The black swans are already in Tashkent

Chancy

Lullaby on Mount Moriah by Traci Brimhall

Recent Reading: Untold Night and Day

In the April woods

Remember where you were and what you were doing on 8 April 2024?

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February 2025

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