familyvalues

Sometime in the last couple of months, someone posted a link to a site that had interesting looking shirts made of linen, for lower prices than most places charge. I forgot to bookmark it. Can anyone point me to it? or to something else that fits that description, even if you didn't see it here?

Edited to add: A the shirts were less expensive than I expected, which is a large part of why I'm interested. Those may have been sale prices, I don't remember.

Also, the were made of either linen or a linen blend, not "line".

ailbhe

-Doors and windows all closed
-Blinds and curtains all drawn when sunlight falls on the glass
-Mylar foil on the windows
-External shade on the windows and walls where available (we moved a potted tree)
-Margarine tub of water frozen to make a huge ice cube for the flask-with-tap of water, takes longer to melt than same volume of smaller ice cubes so keeps water cool all day
-Cooling scarves
-Drinking water from bottles means we drink more
-Linen clothes
-Watering plants with Baumbad bags and only at night
-Portable aircon units *simpsons meme*

redbird

Jay Kuo takes a break from chronicling the regime's crimes to share some honest hope for today, and the days and months ahead:

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/celebrating-independence

redbird

Boston's Orange Line, by Andrew Elder and Jeremy C. Fox. This is a collection of black-and-white photos, going back to the start of the old elevated orange line, with captions. This was for the "explore Boston history" square on the BPL summer reading bingo. If I'd noticed the "images of rail" series title, I wouldn't have borrowed this book. The captions are just about enough to confirm that there's more than enough to be said on the subject to make a book, but this isn't. This has a disjointed discussion of the lengthy "realigmnent" of the orange line to its current route, and a couple of paragraphs on the decision not to run an 8-lane interstate through the middle of Boston and Cambridge, and no suggestion that anything similar had happened elsewhere. Ah, well.

There are suggestions on the library website for some of the squares (including "with a green cover"), but not this one. Searching the catalog for "Boston histpry" got me this, along with, among other things, a book about the Big Dig, a book about the Great Molasses Flood (which is at least mentioned in this, with a picture of damage to the orange line), and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

ailbhe

From our Librarything
Title: So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix
Author: Bethany C. Morrow
Publication: St Martin's Press (2021), 304 pages

Started: 2025-06-26 – Finished: 2025-07-02

This is a fascinating idea and absolutely delightfully executed. Little Women, but with the March family as recently freed African-Americans. It changes EVERYTHING about the book, of course, but the threads are still there to link the two. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and their love interests against a background of a place and perspective in history I was completely unaware of before now.

I found the tone both true to the time and easy to access, and the romantic storylines, in particular, much more satisfying than in the original Little Women. I was especially delighted by Beth, though also, of course, especially heartbroken, though the story as a whole is very light on gory details of atrocities; the emotional details are all there.

Five stars and I'll read any sequels.

elainegrey

Yesterday's research dive was into how the heart works specifically - i knew generally, - so i could understand Dad's echo report that has found the mitral valve failing (prolapsed) and blood being back washed into the lung. And i've read up on the surgeries and what could happen if he doesn't opt for treatment. The recovery period is daunting. It seems he'll need people to stay with him, where people are me and my sister perhaps? Although i can hardly care for myself....

I rush ahead though. His next study is on the 29th, his consult (i will join him that day) is on 6 August.

I am off work again, but this time with no health emergency, just a long break over the fourth of July holiday. Rest. And i should go use the weed burner since we had a quarter inch of rain last night. And the mowing that i need to do. Thank heavens there's plenty i can do with the wheeled string trimmer, for which wet grass is not a challenge. I did some mowing last night with the grass mower. Too much of the grassy zones in the orchard have gone over to stilt grass. If i could be confident of rain, i'd scalp everything and hope the fescues would get ahead.

Meanwhile, blueberries are coming in fast; mulberries are ripening, too. Might get enough mulberries to make a dehydrator tray worth while in the next few days. And figs are ripening, to my startlement. The persimmon has dropped lots of fruit, self thinning, still looking loaded. The single remaining Aunt Rachel's apple has fallen from the tree, and i found it with a worm sticking out and wriggling. Fie. One Grimes Golden apple remains: this is mainly due to the late frost, but generally i do not have a good site for apples.

I found one of the Tahitian squash vines had actually set a fruit, as big as a usual mature summer yellow squash already. I picked it to eat now, expecting i will see more fruit to allow to grow to winter keeping sizes. The yellow butter cube squash have had male flowers like mad, but no fruit. The plants have stayed tiny.

The Early Girl tomato has some nice set green fruit; the Better Boy has started as well. A forest of Matt's wild tomato volunteers have come up in the past weeks and i intend to move them to a place with high deer exposure in the hopes that they'll accept some pruning.

One of my new native shrubs, a St John's Wort "Sunburst", was pruned back severely by deer. I think it will be for the best, but i am miffed as it seems they never browse the many wild St John's worts.

A doe has been visible in the yard periodically - somehow i manage to dissociate the sight of the doe from the herbivory in my mind -- and cotton tails have been common disappearing into high growth. Haven't seen the hawk. Humming birds are visiting the glads and hummingbird mint, clouds of tiger swallowtails on the Joe Pye weed.

I missed seeing my nephew D, niece S, and sister in law M last week as their visit coincided with Christine in the hospital. I had thought S & M would be here this weekend, but no. They will be with nephew Z in Tampa. D is in ROTC training and i will get to see him on his return with my brother.

I worry about my siblings' job/financial situations. If i lost my job today, i think Christine and i could limp by with retirement savings. (I don't know how easily i could transfer my experience into something generally employable.) But my siblings are looking for work, more or less, and i don't get the sense it's an easy time to look.

wcg

Happy Kalends of Quintillis! Are you ready for the Ludi Apollonares?

alierak posting in

dw_maintenance

We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

kayre

If you are old enough, you may remember a series of biographies for children-- distinctive two-tone books, biographies that leaned heavily on the childhood of each person but also summed up their notable achievements. I found those in 3rd or 4th grade, and read all of them that I could find, in both school and public libraries.

One of them was on Eleanor Roosevelt. It focused on her work with the United Nations late in her life. I remember reading about her horror at learning that there were children, babies, who were not citizens of any country. In many cases their parents were refugees after World War II, and their babies were legally neither citizens of the countries the parents had left, nor of the countries where the babies were born. Roosevelt was horrified; ultimately under her leadership the Universal Declaration of Human Rights addressed this situation (Article 15).

Roosevelt's horror became my horror; it's probably the first political idea I ever adopted. I was (obviously) deeply moved by this story, and deeply proud that that didn't happen in MY country; any baby born in America is American, we don't cause babies without a country.

Now powerful people in my country are trying to take this away. My anger runs so deep, and I will do all in my power to oppose any such change, and to get these people (who have not made even a single compassionate exception to their hate-filled policies) out of power.

wcg

Weasel Stomping Day!!???

ailbhe

I am not keeping up to date. It's partially that I'm often tired and partially that I'm still not writing about the thing that happened around Christmas that made things... more difficult... though ultimately it will turn out to have been better this way. But it's INCREDIBLY HOT and so we're running fans and using the pop-up pool in the garden and eating TONS of ice cream so it's also quite luxuriously holidayesque, while underneath is the horror of climate change. Yay?

In the last couple of weeks I may be regaining my ability to read again, which is intermittent, and I'm hoping to do monthly book posts again, I liked that the two or three times I did them.

redbird

Today's trip to the farmers market was successful and satisfying.

I left the house as soon as I'd had my morning tea, and went to a market that opens at 10 on Sundays. I got there at about 10:20, before they'd sold out of anything I wanted, or might want.

What I particularly wanted was raspberries, and I bought two small boxes of those (totalling about a pint).

Busa Farms had a bin full of nice-looking shell peas, and I bought almost two pounds, because Cattitude is very fond of fresh peas. When I got home, he told me that he'd thought he had missed the local pea season this year. I also bought a bunch of red radishes, because they caught my eye while I was in line to pay for the peas. (Busa had both red and purple radishes, which somehow made them more appealing than if there'd only been one kind of radish.)

Hi-Rise Bakery was there, and I bought a small loaf of their concord bread, which is the right degree of crusty for the three of us. (They also have a thicker-crust "luce.")

The raspberries are from Kimball's, where I also bought a few diva cucumbers.

Stillman's Farm didn't have lamb sausages, but when I asked about it, the vendor said "probably next week" and asked what kind I liked. She is going to report back that they had a request for merguez sausages. I don't know whether we'll get to the same market next week, but it sounds like there will be lamb sausages at the other local farmers markets soon.

A lot of other things looked good, but I decided I didn't need lettuce (multiple varieties), cherry tomatoes, or fish.

Current Mood: satisfied

eeyore_grrl

 
                 104*

it's 104 degrees on my naked body
if it's any consolation
         they say
it's a dry heat
but 100 is a 100 is a 100
and heat is hot

a cool mist sprays fine water droplets
occasionally covering me

i read poolside
my kindle my friend 
                                         amongst strangers
my husband my love 
                                          amongst newness
how do you make friends at a nudist resort
and i wonder
         if i want to
we are here to be us
we are here to relax
we are not looking for the insundry
the un.... sanitary

not this time
not today

but it's a dry heat
                        (they say)
        and i wonder
         what fever dreams connect here
         i wonder
         if my skin reddens
         because it sees the sun
         or because eyes see me

if it's any consolation
         they say
it's a dry heat

        perhaps,
                              i won't get wet 
                                                             after all

Watch on YouTube

redbird

I learned this morning that

acelightning has died. She was one of the people I only know online, but feel like friends because we have real conversations (in her case, here on Dreamwidth and previously on LJ).

elainegrey

Christine is home as of Wednesday evening and broadly much better (although this instant she is recovering from a panic attack during a migraine). Antibiotics remain a miracle. Also, thanks for our capabilities to culture bacteria. Thursday morning her doctor called to let her know that Arecoccus urinae was cultured and she'd need a different antibiotic from the one she was sent home with on Wednesday and no, the one she was sent home with on Monday wouldn't work either.

This does explain the one Monday dose having no effect.

I think she got the call while i was giving a division wide talk, that seemed reasonably received: crickets from the audience. Too basic? Too much? Always hard to tell.

Yesterday was B--'s memorial. I took the whole day as bereavement, and have scheduled much of next week off (2nd & 3rd as vacation, 4th a holiday, 5th & 6th weekend, and 7th more vacation and my sister in law's birthday)

I continued to test negative through all of this, but my cough is acting up, which annoys.

redbird

One book finished in the past fortnight: Aftermarket Afterlife, by Seanan McGuire, the 14th volume in her InCryptid series of fantasy novels. I was disappointed by this one: there were too many ghosts and too few cryptids, and the ending seemed abrupt, even given that this is number 14 in a loose series. I'm not a big fan of ghosts, and the book is narrated by Aunt Mary, the Price family's ghost babysitter. The ebook also contains "Excerpt from Mourner's Waltz," about a bit of Verity's life, as the superintendent and only human resident of a Manhattan apartment building. The novel and short story both contain massive spoilers for at least the two previous books in the series.

I gave up on Twelve Trees (mentioned in the previous post) because the printing was hard on my eyes, and since it's a hardcover rather than an ebook, I can't change the font or print size, and I have to take it back to the library.

redbird

Cattitude took the cat in for her follow-up appointment, and the nurse said she's doing just fine, and cleared her to start eating crunchy things (which include her favorite cat treats). She hadn't been eating much in the previous few days, so they sent Cattitude home with two medications to improve her appetite. The cat has her appetite back, and headed right for the bowl of kibble, and ignored the bowl of wet food. She also informed us at dinner, when offered Greenies, that those were her proper treats, thank you very much. The other cat, Molly, is also pleased that we are once again giving them kibble and the familiar treats; there was no practical way to give Molly kibble and Kaja only wet food, so neither cat got anything crunchy for ten days.

We may be going to London last month, to sort through some of Mom's stuff, including papers and photos. (Mark needs to be there, and I want to, even though it will mean a lot of time masking, and probably a lot of takeout meals eaten in a hotel room. I emailed the cat sitter,

I checked this afternoon, and my inherited share of Mom's Vanguard account is in my account. Separately, there's a life insurance policy that seems to have asked for another form after my brother sent in what he thought was everything they wanted. In addition to the Vanguard account, there are some UK bank accounts, which Mark thinks will take several months to go through probate. All of this is a little weird, and I want my mother, not her life insurance.

Boston (along with much of the eastern United States and Canada) is in the middle of the sort of heat wave where they advise everyone to stay indoors if possible, not just people who are particularly sensitive to the heat. Both the NWS warning and the Boston heat emergency are only through this evening, but they're predicting that tomorrow will also be hotter than I find comfortable.

elainegrey

So, Chapter 3 isn't over. We reset the days since last trip to emergency room/emergency vet last night with Christine. I am very glad we got her there and that the intervenous anti-nausea, antibiotics, and fluids has her looking much better. I swear she was looking a little yellow around the eyes last night and she looks much better now. The long painful wait in the emergency room was no fun, and i feel it was just in time when she got seen. Her blood pressure was falling.

Not going into all the details as they belong to Christine, but sharing what i feel is part of my details.

She has since had many tests, and news before 8 am that they would admit her. I was there mid morning through after lunch, advocating for her regular meds and reading/researching the test results when we got them. No doctor showed. Since she still tests positive for COVID she's under COVID precautions and will be for ten days -- but please let her be home well before that. Her sister is there now and i go back tonight with CPAP and other supplies. [Yay, a doctor's consult, with me included by phone. They think just the infection but given how bad things were last night want to make sure she is well recovered with more fluids and more antibiotics.]

In Monday's therapy i discussed basically being kinda flat lined, kinda breaking into tears all the time. -- -- This was before Christine really took a bad turn. Sunday evening she wasn't well and it was a bad night. Monday morning i drove her to an appointment to see a nurse practitioner for the doctor she trusts, gotten antibiotics and were hoping that we were on a course to solve the immediate issues and a plan to address some other longer running issues - that i hadn't known about. -- -- I finally acknowledged i need to recover from All This.

Since 24 February -- four months ago -- we've been to the emergency room/vet -- six times now. I mean, since Jan 20 it hasn't been easy. And between February 24 and April 18, 53 days, nothing dramatic inside our home happened (oh, but the US and administration's injustices, including the attacks on transpersons and the resounding political silence). Most of that time i was recovering from the platelet drop, and was just feeling better and stronger on April 12. So really the intense time has been from April 18 to now: five emergencies (two resulting in our loss of Luigi and Edward) in less than ten weeks. Plus B--'s death, convalescence for Carrie.

I have grown to believe that if you have an stressful work time of x weeks or months, it takes about 2x weeks to recover.

20 weeks from today is November 11. Maybe Chapter 4 begins then.

redbird

We just had an unexpected visit: Adrian asked if I'd be willing to either mask or sit in the study with the door closed, so one of her comrades could sit in our air conditioned apartment for a little while. Adrian asked because Simcha is less heat-tolerant than I am, and at least as covid-cautious, so I said yes. It was good to talk to them; I'd met Simcha but only in passing, and Adrian hadn't met them at all, but Adrian talks about them, and Simcha is the person we recently gave our loveseat to.

That was fun, and now they have left and I have taken my mask and clothes off, and am drinking tea. I ended the visit when I started getting uncomfortably warm despite the AC, as well as it being time for me to have tea.

looking for a link/website

It's hot

July 4th

Wednesday reading

Books: So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

(morning writing, f&f, yard, critter watch)

Rabbit! Rabbit! Rabbit!

Rebuilding journal search again

On Birthright Citizenship

Are you ready for...

Monthly updates could be worse

farmers market

104°. (Ljidol wheel of chaos week 2)

acelightning has died

(morning writing)

Wednesday reading

updates

(chapter 4, us)

(no subject)

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May 2015

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