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[personal profile] bleodswean
This is very long. 3300 words. It is the story of September. The story of my daughter's cardiac ablation. If there are signs and omens in the universe, then this week's prompt is one of them. For me. 


Read more... )

A Comedy of Errors

Sep. 29th, 2025 06:18 pm
muchtooarrogant: (Default)
[personal profile] muchtooarrogant
LJI Week 11: Tiger Team
The following story is a continuation of an entry I wrote during LJ Idol's last mini season, Future's Gambit. I wrote this entry to hopefully stand alone, but also decided to provide the link here in case you're interested.




388873: Your next assignment will be in Austin, TX at the Curtain Theatre on October 25.

Jesse Baker: Interesting, will I be in the audience or somewhere else?

388873: In the audience on the ground level.

JB: And the mission?

388873: The theater is located on private property, and the owner, Richard Garriott, is selling the land. October 25 is the theater's last performance date, Garriott will be there, and a deranged individual will attempt to kill him to prevent the sale.Read more... )




Voting information to follow.

Dan

Week 11: Tiger Team

Sep. 29th, 2025 07:11 pm
alycewilson: Photo of me after a workout, flexing a bicep (Default)
[personal profile] alycewilson
This is my entry for LJ Idol: Wheel of Fate, Week 11. This week's topic is "Tiger Team."

"What should I put on my section of the shield?" one of the Cub Scouts asked me.

"Something that you think represents you or represents the group," I suggested.

As the den leader for a group of first graders, I loved activities that encouraged creativity. Usually, I tried to help them work towards their own ideas rather than just giving them specific suggestions of what to create.

We were working on the Good Knights elective adventure. For those unfamiliar with Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts USA), "adventures" are thematic units. Upon completing them, the Cub Scouts receive a metal belt loop they can slide onto their uniform belt. The den had voted on Good Knights as one of two electives required to complete the rank of Tiger, along with several other required adventures.

This was the first year of scouting for my son, KFP, and my first year as den leader. I'd shown up at the information meeting at the beginning of the year, because my brother had had such a great time in Scouts. Recently, he'd given me his old Cub Scout shirt and a bunch of hats and bandanas that his son had outgrown. The main reason we attended the info meeting, though, was because the Cub Scout pack was being run by the mother of KFP's good buddy, whom we'll call Connor.

Not only did we walk away from that meeting with KFP registered as a Cub Scout, but I'd somehow volunteered to be the den leader for his den. Since then, it had been a learning experience for us both.

KFP, of course, had learned the many things that Scouting provides to kids: useful real-life skills, camping and outdoor knowledge, and tips on how to be a good neighbor and friend.

I, on the other hand, had learned that I'd better include a hands-on activity if I really wanted these youngsters to listen to any concept I was trying to teach. Although I had purchased the den leader workbook that was supposed to provide me with instructions on teaching each adventure, I soon learned that some of the activities were too involved or too off-topic to get through in a one-hour weekly meeting. And some activities mostly consisted of me, as the adult, talking to them about something like the meaning of the flag.

I spent hours online, researching suggestions from other den leaders and being active in a Facebook group for Cub Scout leaders. And still, I found that some of my well-planned activities just didn't resonate. Like the time we were supposed to draw on construction paper with chalk, and one of the boys spent most of the meeting creating a big, messy pile of chalk dust.

The rewarding moments, where the kids were engaged and seemed to be picking up new concepts, were at constant war with the frustrating moments, when kids were, for example, shooting rubber bands across the room instead of making the wind-up cars I'd planned. Even with the Scoutmaster regularly praising me for helping my den advance towards earning their rank, I still doubted myself and often got a little nervous before the meetings.

My son's journey was a bit different, as he didn't fret about advancement but mostly cared about the social aspect. While KFP already knew Connor, having met when they were babies at library storytime, he was still getting to know the other Tigers. This included one guy, whom we'll call Cyrus, who had joined the pack halfway through the school year.

The Good Knights adventure taught about the ancient concept of chivalry, and the Scouts were encouraged to compare the concepts of chivalry with the Scout Law: "A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent." They also learned about heraldry, built a castle out of recycled materials (destined to become a favorite hang-out for our kitty Luke), and now, they were making a shield that represented the den.

I'd drawn an outline of a shield and then divided the shield into portions for them to fill in their own way. On the bottom edge and down the center, I'd affixed some beautiful die-cut appliques created by Cyrus's mom, who had her own die-cut machine. I provided the kids with markers, crayons, colored paper, scissors, and glue. They then were asked to fill in their section. But they were all stumped at how to begin.

To get them past their creative block, I asked them to think not just about how they defined themselves but also how they defined their little group. "There are no right answers," I said. "Do whatever you feel fits."

Much to my surprise, they started a conversation about their memories of the den. For them, it came back to one key moment: a "backyard nature hike" we'd taken the night that Cyrus first joined us.

That hike had been part of a different adventure. We were supposed to go outside and use our senses to take notice of the nature around us. Because we met in the evening, and it was fall, we'd stepped outside into the grassy area near the church, only to be met with inky darkness. At first, the kids joked that it was too dark to see any nature.

I told them to listen to the sounds around them. Once they stopped giggling, they could hear a few lonely crickets chirping in the November chill. We could hear the rustle of leaves underfoot.

Our eyes having adjusted, I told them to look around. We saw the silhouettes of trees, backlit by street lights. And then, in a voice suffused with wonder, Cyrus spoke up: "Look up, everyone! The moon!"

Through tree branches, we could see the crescent moon, hanging like a silver smile, beaming down at us. It seemed closer to Earth than usual: as large as a first grader's imagination.

"Wow" was on all of their lips, as they marveled at the moon that seemed to have been hung for their pleasure. When we talked about the experience after going back inside, the moon was the one thing they all remembered.

And now, all these months later, they agreed that that moment had been special. As they worked on their individual sections of the shield, they all chose to include their version of the moon: a symbol of the first moment they came together as a unit.

We'd had plenty of fun experiences as a group before Cyrus joined the den, but in their intuitive way, they'd gotten to the heart of the activity. The moment that defined them as a group was the first time they'd all shared something meaningful. I realized, then, that this journey we were all taking together meant something to me, as well.


The Pack 63 shield, on fading dark blue card stock, with a shield drawn in black marker. Each of four sections is filled with cut and glued paper and a few marker and crayon line drawings. They all include either a crescent moon or, in one case, a full moon.




A couple hours after posting this, I learned that Dave Biche, the assistant Scoutmaster of KFP's troop, died suddenly over the weekend. We had just spent a happy time with him the week before, building LEGO structures at a meeting. He became the primary instructor of Scout material for KFP once he moved up to regular Scouts, and his good humor and unflagging community spirit set a good example for those he led. He will greatly missed.

Men

Sep. 27th, 2025 02:53 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I did a photoshoot for the local LGBT charity a few years ago when they were looking for disabled people to photograph. And the other day, while I was in the car somewhere between Ullapool and Avimore, I got an e-mail with what looks like a similar photoshoot, this time for LGBT+ men (and non-binary people "and their allies"). And it's today and I forgot about it, but Thursday night I did try to look at the form they asked us to fill in. I could do the page of demographics stuff: age, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. But I stopped at the next page which asks

What does being a man (or being seen as a man) mean to you, and how do you express that in your own way?

What changes would you like to see in how society understands masculinity, and how do you think men can better support each other and their communities?

I had no idea what to do with these. I wandered away from the computer and promptly forgot about it until now. The photoshoot is today, it's going on now, so obviously that's not happening. And I never thought it was likely because of that timing; we're all about as exhausted and low on spoons as I thought we'd be. And that's a shame; with a cis man, a trans man, and a non-binary person who had femininity forced upon them and has only recently been able to reject that, I feel like my little family potentially is a great example of different relationships to manhood/masculinity.

Reminded of it now when I opened Firefox to look at something else, I see there's a couple more questions on the page that I didn't even get as far as reading the other day:

What message would you give to someone exploring their gender or identity — at any age — who might be looking for a role model?

What do you see as the biggest challenges or issues facing men in 2025, and what support or resources do you think men — and their loved ones — need to navigate these challenges and thrive?

Interesting questions. On the way home from the gym, D gave our local pal, another D, home and we got talking about driving and the behavior of strangers in their own cars. We talked about how toxic masculinity extends its tentacles even there, with young men on a speed awareness course talking about being overtaken as a personal insult, and me sharing a couple of quotes I've seen from blind people talking about the appeal of self-driving cars for them being about feeling like a man because they can be the family taxi again.

Last night I brushed my teeth, flossed and had another try at trimming my beard. I felt so good, clean and ready for bed.

In one way I'm like man I've added another body-maintenance chore?! but it's totally worth it because the feeling of my neck being smooth because I just shaved it is so so much nicer than it being smooth because hair never grew there in the first place. Somehow this is about being a man (even though facial hair is not necessary or sufficient to be one).

I laid awake a long time after I went to bed, but I spent some of that time smelling the remnant of shaving cream my brain still associates with D, and grinning. As I lay there and thought about it more, about how negatively I'm used to hearing shaving being talked about because almost everyone I know who talks about it is transfem, has skin or other attributes which are particularly sensitive to the physical necessities of shaving, or both. And just the sentence that society expects men not to care/try/whatever when it comes to appearance or grooming (that's why a whole word had to be invented for metrosexuals!) But it only now occurs to me that I was actually much more likely to be scruffy/smelly/whatever as a girl or woman, because I was so uncomfortable in my body, mentally detaching myself from it as much as possible, and extremely put off by all of the options for appearance or grooming that were available to me in that gender role. Now I feel like I'm more successful at being well-groomed just because it's more fun or appealing, more satisfying or soothing. Somehow this is about being a man too.

netgirl_y2k: (Default)
[personal profile] netgirl_y2k
I have had a circular journey with the movie The Mandalorian and Grogu. At first I thought 'That's not a real movie', then I thought 'Well, maybe the movie is real but that's obviously a joke name the internet has given it,' and then I wondered 'Did Disney forget to swap out the working title?' And now, having seen the trailer I have come all of the way back around to 'This movie isn't real.'

Speaking of movies that aren't real, The Thursday Murder Club is less an actual movie than it is an extremely pricey episode of Midsomer Murders

Telly is real, though.

I frickin' adored Alien: Earth even though, had you been in the room with me while I was watching it, all you would have heard was a near constant litany of 'OH, NO. EW, GROSS. AGHH! THAT'S SO UNPLEASANT. PUT THAT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT OR SO HELP ME!

Some things I particularly enjoyed: Boy Kavalier being the sort of SBF/Altman/Musk amalgamation so icky that you want to join the Xenomorph war on he side of the Xenomorphs. Weyland Yutani's continued insistence on sending people so underpaid/underequipped/unqualified that they don't know about shatterproof glass to collect the universe's most dangerous biological specimens. The unsubtle, tonally jarring, but completely epic mic drops at the end of each episode. The adult actors playing children in grown up bodies by moving like they didn't know what a back spasm was. That they didn't try to hide what the Xenomorph looked like as though we didn't all know.

One thing that I did not like: The horrifying eyeball monster/evil sheep combo. Kill it with fire. And rocks. And rocks which are on fire.

'This is not a good television show,' I say to myself at three o'clock in the morning as I hit 'next episode' on The Hunting Wives. I guess I will once again reiterate that 'good' and 'great' are not the same thing.

My two favourite bits of this show were i) the flashback to how the main character met her husband and it's just that he happened to be the first man who ambled into her field of view when she was having a moment of gay panic, ii) when one of the secondary characters keeps saying to the woman she's in love with that they can't be together openly, and, like, obviously not, because she's a horrible murderer who is only pretending to take you back so she can find out if your sheriff husband (also gay) suspects her, but I do not think that is what you meant.

A lot of the Marvel telly stuff of late has had a whiff of 'What's the point?' about it, having obviously been put in motion before Marvel pivoted and now being sent out to die, which is a bummer in the case of the two most recent animated shows which were pretty solid.

Eyes of Wakanda had an awesome art style, expanded the world of Wakanda without getting tangled in the weeds of Boseman's passing, and gave us an Iron Fist that didn't suck.

I don't think anyone had particularly high expectations of a spin-off from a 2021 episode of a show that has since fizzled out, but Marvel Zombies went so much harder than it had to. It was neat to see Kamala, Shang-Chi, Kate and other characters that I don't think are coming back in live action in any meaningful way get room to play.

It did seem to be angling for a second season at the end there, but, like...come on, bro, be realistic.

Week 11 - Updates

Sep. 26th, 2025 09:49 pm
clauderainsrm: (Default)
[personal profile] clauderainsrm posting in [community profile] therealljidol
 I've been listening to people's comments and I asked the Wheel about an adjustment. There was a BIG item that is on the Wheel that I asked if I could just go ahead and bring it out now.  The Wheel said no.  Which, is probably smart. Let the Wheel have it's time to bring about the chaos on it's own schedule. 

The other idea was approved though.  

So the antidote is going to be working a little differently. Rather than it staying in the hands of one person, STARTING NOW,  that decision is going to be made by the group. 

Now you all have a stake in who lives and who dies.  It's not just the actions of the killer(s), you will be able to predict their next move and get ahead of them, or fail to protect the next victim! 
This will take place before the entry deadline, at the same time you are submitting accusations!  So you could actually stop the next death - if you guess the target right! 

Just add it to your accusation email (clauderainsrm@gmail.com).  Just make sure to let me know which choice is for which thing.  :D 

***

Everyone comes out to Idol for something different. I think that's one of the biggest concepts for people to try to get their heads around. A lot of them fail to do it, because it's easier to assume that everyone is here for the same reason you are.  Just like it's easier to think that everyone agrees on what is a good entry/who is the best/who "deserves" what.... these competing believes are at the center of Idol. It's part of what makes me love what has been created here over the last nearly two decades. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about why this special event is all twists... part of it was the one just before had hardly any - so it seemed like the next natural step.  People complained about the lack of twists. Be there are people who don't like that there are so many.  :D  Again, it's because people are here for different reasons... 

But all of you end up accomplishing the same thing - you write absolutely brilliant entries. Some is fiction. Some non-fiction or poetry... over the years pretty much anything you could think of to create in this space has been created!  

The twists were put in place early on for a couple big reasons - (1) to keep things interesting, not only for the contestants to keep you invested, but also the audience who wasn't playing. Also for me!   (2) to keep things fair. Especially early on in Idol there were people with massive, active friends groups. There were also people who came in knowing no one.  What was to keep someone coming in and just dominating the entire time with no hope for anyone else?  Twists. It keeps people on their toes and in a lot of cases it doesn't mean that it's the end of the road for anyone with a more supportive base. It just means that the majority of other contestants need to be OK with their winning.  :)  Which is it's own secret sauce! 

This time was different than most in that I didn't try to make things as fair as possible. I put everything on the Wheel to make it as chaotic as possible, as interesting as possible!  It's the one time when even I don't know what's going to happen next!! 

I came up with a bunch of ideas, and had the Wheel decide which ones were going forward and which were not.  There are some on the scrap heap that I loved and some that got through that I didn't.  But that's part of why I kept saying from the moment I came up with the idea, to every single step of the way before sign ups and again over the first couple weeks that this was going to be the Idol version of Calvinball!!! 

Honestly, we might end up with predictable winners. Or we might not!  My only real hope when it comes to that is that people keep using it as an excuse to write some fantastic entries, to create! Because that's the one thing that everyone can agreed on, that when you show up here you are going to be doing a hell of a lot of writing!!!  :) 





Catching up on some news

Sep. 27th, 2025 12:53 am
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

While we were in Stornoway, I noticed that my phone wasn't getting text messages when I expected them for 2FA.

Again. This happened a few months ago and the phone company's suggestion was to try my sim card in another phone. Which D (who can see these tiny things) was obliging enough to do by swapping it in to his phone.

And (with a lot of me running up and down stairs between where V was and where he was asking people to text each other and letting them know when the other had so we could check if the text went through) that actually worked!

But then (with a lot of me running up and down stairs asking people to text each other and letting them know...) it turned out that his phone/sim card was now having the same problem! Only worse! I felt so bad for having "infected" him with this, a version so bad it wasn't fixed for a few days when he got a whole new sim card in the mail... Even though I didn't actually do anything and it isn't like Independence Day where you can infect a gadget with techno-gremlins like this.

I didn't want any of this to happen to any of us again, and I figured I could put it off until we were home anyway because it's rare that I actually get SMSes (other than for automated stuff I mostly ignore and the 2FA; I could use other options for that) and besides D needed his little phone-takey-aparty kit with the tiny pokey stick for the sim card which of course he didn't have with him so that settled it.

And I forgot about this entirely (because I never think about SMSes) until this morning. The ongoing dregs of the restructure at work have taken another fabulous colleague from me; she had sent me a message saying goodbye with her personal email and phone number. So without thinking much of it I sent her a text...and then I got a reply text a minute later!

Which is a good thing, because I soon after got a text from the pharmacy saying my meds are ready for collection and I'm about to run out, but then even more importantly I got one from the gender clinic telling me I have finally made it near the top of the waiting list for Voice and Communication Therapy.

Only fifteen months after I was told I'm near the top of the waiting list for voice therapy, only three months after I was assured that I really am near the top of the list, I've been sent a form asking me when I'm free and stuff shout accessing the sessions.

The form also asked me why I want voice therapy, which feels so much less urgent than it was when I was referred for this 3+ years ago. Then, my reason could have been described as "I can carefully sculpt my appearance to avoid most misgenderings, especially online, but I'm sick of being misgendered by everyone who can hear but not see me and I work with a lot of blind people." Two years of planned manitizer has mostly taken care of that problem.

But I am if anything even more interested in voice therapy now because I feel like I've been given by the 2+ years of testosterone a...tool? weapon?...that I don't really know how to operate properly. And, nothing against YouTube videos and the other online DIY resources, but I've never felt good about steering my (post-)transition life by them. To say the least (I still have to write about how the whole top surgery thing is going... I can't just now but let's just say that the two big headings will be Medical Anti-Fatness and Why are Healthcare Professionals Telling Me I Have to Go on Facebook and Reddit).

But anyway, the SMS with the link to the form also included a boilerplate NHS thing:

If we do not hear from you within 7 days, we will assume you do not want to access VCT, and you will be discharged from the VCT service. You can re-refer at a later date by contacting...

I was gone for longer than seven days, imagine that had been in the U.S. where I wouldn't have access to my SMSes, or imagine my phone hadn't fixed itself this time. I had no other indication of this information, no email or attempt at a phone call or anything.

It's maddening when a referral I've been waiting three years for depends on my phone working properly (and a bunch of other aspects of my life working properly!) during any given one-week period.

Homecomings

Sep. 26th, 2025 09:41 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist
Last night after a long day in the car (Falkirk aside), when we finally got home I was so excited to be out of the car that I popped out like a Jack-in-the-box, grabbed some random stuff to haul inside, and all but stumbled through the door only to be met with a cheerful greeting from [personal profile] angelofthenorth, the delicious smell of mushroom risotto cooking, and even the Doof playing -- picking up seamlessly from when we'd just had it on in the car.

And then this evening she asked if saag paneer would be okay for supper and that's my *favorite* curry, and I came back from yoga to find her already happily eating it and the other two in the kitchen just dishing up, I could hear them being silly with each other.

It's so cozy and I was so grateful, having spent the whole day so discombobulated and exhausted that I needed a nap before yoga and I didn't get as much work done as I should have. Home cooked food is very recombobulating!

Charismatic megainfrastructure

Sep. 25th, 2025 11:02 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Recently D sent me the link to a 2019 Dreamwidth entry of his about an outing to Anderton Boat Lift that stands out in our minds for two reasons: one is that it's the day before we ended up dating and we had no idea but the other is that he mentions that we, he and I, had been on about going to Anderton Boat Lift for ages by that point.

And the other feat of canal engineering we always talked about wanting to visit is the Falkirk Wheel.

But unlike the Anderton Boat Lift which I could rush my work day to finish a bit early and be picked up in time to get there for a late lunch, or the Barton Swing Bridge which is so close we biked to it last summer (or maybe two summers ago), Falkirk is very far away so we'd never found an excuse to be in the vicinity.

Until this Stornoway trip. D has a complicated spreadsheet with all the moving parts for such a trip and realized that if we stayed at the further of their two usual spots after the ferry back to the mainland, it would leave us with little enough driving to do on the second day that we could spend some time in Falkirk.

We saw the Kelpies first, which I'd heard about as motorway landmarks from [personal profile] haggis but never thought about as a destination. We had so much fun there though that we stayed past the time D had expected our visit there to last and got home at 8pm instead of 7pm. The weather was beautiful, there were good dogs everywhere, the visitor centre had a very good video explaining the history of Falkirk and was full of excellent tactile models: the kelpies made of Legos, little models of them to scale with world landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Sphinx, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil...

Then it was on to the main event. First we had lunch at the kind of place where we'd have wanted to sit outside even if we weren't always doing that now anyway, we ate in the literal shadow of the wheel. I was sitting across from D who when the wheel was moving was just smiling at it in a way that reminded me of icons of saints gazing upon some heavenly scene, full of proper awe and joy. So I got to see the Falkirk Wheel and I got to see how happy it made him, and I can't decide which I enjoyed more.

We finished eating just in time for D and I to take the next tour, where you get in a boat, go up to the aqueduct and along the canal a little while you listen to a local do their spiel (ours was called Gary! and he complimented my #TeamGary t-shirt which I happened to be wearing that day).

Sadly V wasn't feeling up to it: this was Day 9 of traveling and being so much busier than usual was already catching up with them. But they made the right decision; they know so much about narrowboats and canals anyway and the tour was very audio-based and they'd have struggled to get much out of it. They had a nice time in the sunshine watching ducks and moorhens and more good dogs, and buying the cutest fridge magnet in the gift shop, a little abstract model of the wheel that you can spin like a fidget toy, which is delightful.

For a few years now I've been desperate to show him the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, and this has only deepened my desire to make this happen. It doesn't seem overly likely any time soon, but then the Falkirk Wheel has only existed for 23 years and we must have spent at least half of that talking about wanting to go see it, so I'm okay to wait a while.

The Wheelhouse - Week 11

Sep. 26th, 2025 12:07 am
clauderainsrm: (Default)
[personal profile] clauderainsrm posting in [community profile] therealljidol
 After a dramatic elimination therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1202102.html

There is a new twist therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1202303.html    and a new prompt! https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1202480.html



*
**

How are you going to be celebrating my birthday weekend? 

Prompt - Week 11

Sep. 25th, 2025 11:21 pm
clauderainsrm: (Default)
[personal profile] clauderainsrm posting in [community profile] therealljidol
 The prompt for this week is 

Tiger Team 

The deadline to link your entry back to this thread is Tuesday, September 30th at 7pm ET. 

Have fun! 

Twist Reveal - Week 11

Sep. 25th, 2025 09:09 pm
clauderainsrm: (Default)
[personal profile] clauderainsrm posting in [community profile] therealljidol
 *spins the wheel* 

It's another twist!

But which twist shall it be?   Only one way to find out! 
 *spins the wheel again* 

Bye Necklace 

Whoever receives the lowest amount of votes without getting eliminated, in Week 11, will receive 2 extra byes - TO GIVE TO OTHER PEOPLE!! It's a great way to make new friends.  :) 


Results - Week 10

Sep. 25th, 2025 08:30 pm
clauderainsrm: (Default)
[personal profile] clauderainsrm posting in [community profile] therealljidol
 It took me 3 extra buses and an Uber to get home.  But I'm here now!  (2 buses broke down, and then the 3rd one was the "regularly scheduled" so it wasn't going to leave the transfer center until 8:20.  Note: I left work at 4:15) 

But that's not what anyone is here to listen to.  You want results! 

You want THE URN. 

*brings out the urn with the Survivor style votes from behind the podium* 

This week was a little different. Most weeks in Idol you are all wonderfully supportive of each other. This time, you voted to eliminate one of your fellow contestants.  There were 17 eligible voters this time, and 15 votes in this urn.  Which, is actually better than I feared it could go. 

So, let's just get to it... oh, what's that on the floor... another empty vial.  Why do you litter bugs keep dropping these around? First in the castle and now out here at tribal council!! 

Pick up after yourself you heathens!!

Anyway, as I was saying, let's get to the votes.  

*opens the urn and pulls out the first vote* 

[personal profile] fausts_dream 

Next vote is for 
[personal profile] marjorica 


That's 1 vote Faust's dream and 1 vote majorica. 


Next vote is...

[personal profile] flipflop_diva 

That's 1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica and 1 vote flipflop_diva 

Next vote 

[personal profile] xeena 

That's 1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 1 vote xeena

*pulls out another vote* 


[personal profile] xeena 

That's  1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 2 votes xeena

*pulls out another vote* 

[personal profile] xeena 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 3 votes xeena

*pulls out another vote* 

[personal profile] muchtooarrogant 


1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 3 votes xeena, 1 vote muchtooarrogant 

*reaches into the urn* 

[personal profile] muchtooarrogant 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 3 votes xeena  2 votes muchtooarrogant 

*pulls out another vote* 


[personal profile] muchtooarrogant 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 3 votes xeena  3 votes muchtooarrogant   We are tied. 

Next vote: 

[personal profile] xeena 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 4 votes xeena  3 votes muchtooarrogant 

Next vote: 

[personal profile] xeena 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 5 votes xeena  3 votes muchtooarrogant 

*reaches into urn again* 


[personal profile] muchtooarrogant 


1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 5 votes xeena  4 votes muchtooarrogant 


*reaches into urn again* 



[personal profile] muchtooarrogant 


1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 5 votes xeena  5 votes muchtooarrogant   We are tied again.  2 votes left. 

*pauses before slowly pulling out the ballot* 

[personal profile] xeena 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva, 6 votes xeena  5 votes muchtooarrogant 

Final vote: 

[personal profile] xeena 

1 vote Faust's dream, 1 vote majorica, 1 vote flipflop_diva,   5 votes muchtooarrogant   7 votes xeena

[personal profile] xeena  - the tribe has spoken.   *snuffs her torch*   

You have been eliminated.  

Perth

Sep. 24th, 2025 09:42 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

We're halfway(ish) home.

Fun fact: I didn't know there was a Perth besides the one in Australia until a few years ago. Possibly when the other two started breaking this journey here.

The trip was uneventful if hard on poor D, who hates driving and is exhausted. I'm glad he got a little nap on the ferry. The weather was beautiful: fluffy clouds, sun glittering in the blue water of the Minch as we crossed it. I didn't doze this time but listened to podcasts about baseball and had lots of feelings (I'm having so many baseball feelings lately!).

We've just been in so many places lately; all I wanted from this one is for there not to be too many weird stairs and there weren't any! Our room is cute and cozy. I also hope the shower isn't too haunted but I'm not awake enough or stinky enough to try that tonight.

Wild to think we'll be home tomorrow night. I am not excited to go back to work but I'm excited to know where everything is and how the shower works.

Skylights

Sep. 20th, 2025 12:07 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Our Airbnb is really nice, but possibly my favorite thing about it is how many skylights there are: each bedroom and the bathroom have one, the bathroom does, and the open-plan kitchen and living room has two or three.

The windows, here in this new-build block of flats, are as small and deep-set as in the blackhouses from hundreds of years ago that we saw in the folk museum. And for the same reason: the wind has been howling since we got here. The skylights allow a lot more natural light without so much wind. My eyes work best in daylight, so this is ideal.

Stirling crew

Sep. 16th, 2025 10:54 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

"There's a wee step here," D told me as we made our way out of the cemetery where we'd gone looking for the pyramid monument that he'd been alerted to on Pokémon Go.

He's often warning me of little things, potential hazards, like this as we're walking around so that wasn't remarkable at all.

What I remarked upon was the language. "Do we all get to say 'wee' now that we're in Scotland?" I asked. "I noticed V saying it earlier but didn't know if it applied to us too."

D had a ready answer. "Yes." It sounded very authoritative!

Stirling has been great. The trip here took an hour and a half longer than it should've thanks to spending that time at a standstill on the M6, thirteen miles back from something that'd happened near Tebay. So by the time we got here, checked in, and found some food, it was 8:30 and I was thinning about going to bed soon when D asked if I wanted to join him for a walk. We could walk down to the lively studenty area or uphill to the "Old Town," with things like the castle, a bunch of statues of old dudes with extravagantly Scottish names, and other touristy landmarks that were all closed and in the dark. But I've still enjoyed it a lot, I was introduced to the concept of a paneer burrito which I'm sad I can't have again in a hurry, and we did find a pub (a hotel bar actually) near the castle -- so close to it that it's called The Portcullis, because it was in the castle's portcullis.

And now I can use Scottish words for things, apparently! So that's nice.

Drama/Trauma in the Laundry Room

Sep. 23rd, 2025 07:14 pm
halfshellvenus: (Default)
[personal profile] halfshellvenus
Somebody, and by that I mean someone furry, started scratching the side of his head two weeks ago, and got a deep sore going before we could get him to the vet to be coned. :(

I bought a cone a couple of years back, but I never took it out of the packaging, and it turned out to basically be labrador-sized. No good for a medium-sized house cat! Our vet was closed the day we wanted to take our cat in, and when they re-opened we discovered they couldn't see him for 4 days. Yikes. I took him to Banfield Pet Hospital (inside PetSmart) to be coned and given antibiotics, because that was the urgent issue. He got the cone off within 5 minutes of being home. HalfshellHusband took him back, and he got the cone off before even leaving the store. So the vet made a soft harness out of some stretchy cloth, and that did the trick.

We took him to our own vet on Monday, for a more thorough examination. They found no underlying cause for his original scratching other than that he gets itchy during the change of seasons, so that was good. But they undid the harness, which means the cat got the cone off again later that night. Holy moly! They gave instructions to burrito him (Hah!) to subdue him, as if they didn't routinely tranq him on office visits (including that very day). By then, a soft cone had come from Amazon that was easier to get on-- this outer-space-themed flower-type thing:


Not our cat

He is able to eat and drink with the soft cone, but also has gotten out of it three times and is sometimes able to still get one of his hind feet into scratching position! I have another, bigger soft cone to try the next time he escapes the current one, but what a headache this all is. He has no idea that he'll be wearing that cone for another 2-4 weeks, which will be fun for all of us. \o?

In Idol news, I was able to come back in (at least for now) due to a lucky spin of the Wheel of Chaos. But [personal profile] rayaso got poisoned, so he's out. That's disappointing. :( There is also no poll this week, so no one seems to be reading or commenting on the entries. Mine is here, if you'd like to take a look. I went with humor, which has been the case for most of this season. Not last week, though! This entry was a pain to format, too, and the HTML that used to let you change font so easily doesn't seem to work anymore. Nor does CSS. I gave up on shifting the typeface styles, but that was after I'd wasted a good 60+ minutes on it.

I WILL get around to TV recs at some point, but let me quickly say that Amazon's The Devil's Hour is really intriguing, and you should give it a try!

Steòrnabhagh

Sep. 22nd, 2025 11:25 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

A quiet day. I didn't sleep so I didn't feel very ambitious this morning. D had to work so I was happy to keep quiet and admire him at the kitchen table with his computer glasses and his headset on. At home he works in his own little room with his back to the door so it was kinda fun to just see him at work. Once he did the finger-snap/finger-guns thing that I recognize as meaning he's managed to do something satisfying on the computer; that was nice to see.

This afternoon V and I went for a little walk around: to An Lanntair ("The Lighthouse," an arts centre) where we bought fridge magnets and socks and admired sculptures wrapped in the distinctive red stripey foil from Tunnocks teacakes, how Scottish can you get. Then on to the sporting goods store, where I bought a t-shirt with a cute line drawing of blackhouses on it; it says "Western Isles." We admired them in the window the other day when the store was closed. They have one with a black pudding too but that isn't nearly as well-drawn or as appealing to me.

We went to Argos quickly to get a hand pump for the tires on V's new rollator, which turned up not long before we left home so this is its first outing. They're very happy with it as the bog-standard one they had before wasn't suited to their needs and caused almost as much pain to use as it alleviated. But one of the things that makes this one better is that it has pneumatic tires, rather than hard rubber ones; they'll absorb some of the shock rather than transferring it directly to poor V's arms. But we hadn't had a chance to pump up the tires before we left and V thought one of them needed it, hence the cheap pump. At home we have an automatic thing that we can use to pump up car and bike tires but we didn't bring it. Once we had the pump, V sat down on a bench outside Argos and I attempted to inflate the tires. They were all in pitiful condition and I marveled that the thing had been as useful for V as it has been. I ended up having to crawl around and just sit on the cool paving slabs to connect the pump, ha. Right there on the high street, I bet we'll be the talk of the town. I know how little it takes to do that in a small town -- I didn't realize quite how small but I just looked it up on Wikipedia and it's under seven thousand people. I feel like I've run into all of them the three times I've been at Tesco since we got here.

We failed to find the temporary location of a store that is run by someone from Minnesota who ended up here, which is the one thing remaining that the others have mentioned really hoping I get to see while I'm here. We have better intel now on exactly where it is, thanks to visiting V's son this evening (and thus I also got to finally meet his tuxedo cat Sam, who I've seen many many photos and videos of). So maybe we can manage that tomorrow, along with a plan to go to the castle. It's our last day here; I'm gonna miss it so much.

Films! Some Films!

Sep. 22nd, 2025 09:24 pm
netgirl_y2k: (Default)
[personal profile] netgirl_y2k
Renfield - Nicholas Hoult! Awkwafina! Shohreh Aghdashloo! Talk about a movie that was less than the sum of its parts!

A Working Man - I have had a soft spot for Statham ever since Spy. This was fine, but the peak dumb Statham action flick is still the The Beekeeper.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods - A kid says a magic world and turns into an adult man with superpowers was a cute premise for a movie; a grown man says a magic world and turns into a different, worse adult man less so.

Thunderbolts - Er...why did this look like it was filmed in a cupboard?

Becky/Wrath of Becky - Killin' nazis in the woods!

Sisu - Killin' nazis in the snow!

Red Sonja - Was this film good? Good grief, no. Was the film excellent? Hell yeah!

Heathers the Musical - Candy Store is a bop. Do the kids still say bop?

What should I watch next? Killin' nazis optional but obviously preferred.

Vote - Week 10

Sep. 21st, 2025 09:46 pm
clauderainsrm: (Default)
[personal profile] clauderainsrm posting in [community profile] therealljidol
 Welcome to those returning to the fray!   I did forget to mention that if you are new this round, you are coming in with 1 bye that is good between now and the Top 10.  So, just keep that in mind! 

This week is going to be different than any week in Idol. Because it's a Survivor style vote!

Which goes against every core value of actual Idol and dives right into the whole reality show aspect. 

What this means is that (1) It's a contestant only vote. You have to be signed up as a current contestant to cast a vote. 
(2) All votes are by email.. You send your vote to clauderainsrm@gmail.com 
(3) Yes, I said VOTE. This time around you are voting for 1 person. The person you want to eliminate from the competition! 

The deadline to vote is Thursday Sept 25th at 7pm ET.    Everyone's entries are at:  https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1201147.html  

Good luck to everyone! 

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