2025 52 Card Project: Week 42: Quiet

Oct. 24th, 2025 12:12 pm
pegkerr: (All was well)
[personal profile] pegkerr
This was one of those weeks that had me wondering, "What was this week about? What can I do for my collage?"

I had a hard time coming up with anything. The week was uneventful, and I have been feeling quiet inside. A little subdued, maybe.

The cold is starting to settle in, and I see frost on the grass in the mornings now.

I have been drinking hibiscus tea to try to bring my blood pressure down a bit.

Fiona and M came over for a visit last Sunday. Poor Fiona was so exhausted (hard work digging trenches during the day, welding classes in the evening, and up with a screaming baby at night), and so after I fed her apple pastries, I told her to go upstairs and take a nap on my bed while I hung out with M.

Babies are oblivious to schedules and deadlines. They live in the moment. I sang songs to her and let her stand on my thighs and bounce up and down (she has Strong Opinions and Takes Umbrage at traditional baby holds. No, no, no. She wants to stand). She fussed for a while until I gave her a bottle and let her sleep. I stared at her for half an hour, just drinking in her presence and enjoying the quiet, until Fiona awoke and came downstairs again, looking sleepy.

"Thanks," she said.

"Anytime," I told her. "Come back again to rest anytime."

Image description: A hand holds a brown leaf up against the sun. Top: a woman's hand cradles a baby's hand. Lower right corner: a cup of hibiscus tea with a slice of lemon floating on the surface of the tea. Semi-transparent overlay: frost on the grass.

Quiet

42 Quiet

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
lydamorehouse: (Bazz-B)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 autumn tree at Lakewood
Image: a colorful autumnal tree from my family's recent visit to Lakewood Cemetery (Minneapolis, MN)

So, due to a recent dust-up that I shall only obliquely allude to, several new folks have discovered my DW. You're here, no doubt, for the fireworks, but I'm typically 1) not that regular a blogger and 2) sort of dull (she says self-deprecatingly---I know I'm truly awesome, but let's get real. I typically blog about my quilting, my family and cats, and taking pictures of bees.)  I will not blame you if you do not stay. 

Speaking of my raging dullness, here it is already "What are You Reading Wednesday" and I have nothing to report. To be fair to me and my slow-reading dyslexic brain, I've been hyperfocused on my up-coming Bryant-Lake Bowl gig and so I've been reading my own short story, over and over again, in an attempt to have it practiced enough for the stage. I also discovered that I neglected Libby long enough that it automatically returned the audiobook of Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson which I had only gotten about 15% into, if that. Ah, well. Did I like it enough to hunt for it again? Proably not. So, now, later today, I'll have to see what else Libby might have for me that's actually available to be borrowed (<--always the real issue.) I still have a pile of manga at my bedside, so I have a few physical books to read as well, including the amusingly titled: My New Boss is Goofy by Ichikawa Dan. I also have a shounen manga called Tank Chair, which is--at least from the cover illustration--about wheelchair mechs, I think?? I'll let you know once I get to it, I guess.

How about you? Reading anything you'd recommend? Aything you wouldn't?

I'm about to go downstairs and cook up something for lunch from the veggies that I got from a new free market food stall place. Unlike the usual food bank charity places, this place--whose name I'm blanking on (and the flyer is in the car!)--believes in the radical concept that everyone should get to reap the benefits of a bountiful harvest. So, like, I don't have to prove that I have economic need, which is nice because our family falls in-between and gets lost in some of the economic cracks. My wife makes an okay salary, but I'm a writer. We have three mouths to feed and we can mostly do just fine? Except those weeks when there's an unexpected bill? And, we have savings, so we really do NOT qualify for most programs like this. But, this place is like, "Be nurished, comrade," and I fucking love that.  

See? This is the typical blog. To be fair, the fun stuff now will probably be locked.

Rehearsals Continue

Oct. 21st, 2025 07:56 am
lydamorehouse: Renji is a moron (eyebrow tats)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 Yesterday was our second rehearsal for the Cole Sarar SciFi Reading Hour. I'm glad we added a another session because I failed to do my homework this last time. Plus, I found it deeply distracting to try to read while Scott played--especially since he was electrified and we weren't. I read my absolute WORST. So, I guess it's good to have gotten that over with? Hopefully, things will only improve from here.

Some funny observations:

Our rehersals keep getting longer because Scott and I can't stop talking. Now that Cole is comfortable with us both, they are also joining in, but, inevitably someone has to say, "We should probably get to work or we'll never get out of here." 

The number of people that Scott and I have in common is starting to reach into strange and unusual places. I'm now starting to wonder how it is even possible that I have never previously talked to him before now. Like, seriously, he's very close friends with someone I regularly play D&D with. ([personal profile] lcohen , it's Carrilon.) The mystery is no longer "Oh, you know THEM?" but "Are you sure we've never been at a party together at some point???"

We spent a long time talking about what Cole likes about Convergence because I have been feeling kind of grumpy about that con ever since it moved to the hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Talking about it makes me feel like a fuddy-duddy, too, and I like that even less. Like, when Cole asked me why I'm not fond of Convergence, I started muttering about crowds and finding it hard to find the people I want to hang out with, and finally "eh, it's always felt like a party con." And, like, some of that is unfair. But, neither Cole nor Scott knew if there were any actual booksellers in the dealer's room--not, I had to clarify, "People sitting at tables with the books they've published" or people like Queen of Swords Press or Tor Books who are selling books, but only from their own publishing house. I mean, like people who are selling books who might potentially bring, say, Naomi's books or one of the Guest of Honor's books... or, you know, if it's Dreamhaven or Uncles, one of my books. They didn't think so, but the fact that that it never occured to them that one of the reasons authors go to conventions is to, you know, sell books, but don't actually necessarily want to have to sit behind a table hand selling their own books.... kind of tells me a lot. Like, I don't expect booksellers to be a con as small as Gaylaxicon (though Dreamhaven did have a spot in our dealer's room thanks to Greg being one of the GoHs.) because it's small. But, Convegence is massive. They should be attractive to a lot of booksellers. And yet... I don't think they are. And I think that's because it's still largely true that people don't go to Convergence to buy books.

The bookseller at Capclave was hopping. So, I don't think it's that booksellers can never make money at conventions. Greg and Lisa are forever travelling to conventions around the country, so it must be worthwile to them at least on some level or you'd think you'd have to eventually not go due to travel costs being higher than profit. 

Anyway, this led us to the Great Schism of Minicon and only Cole and I were old enough to remember experiencing it in real time. Cole's first ever convention was Convergence. 

I don't know where I was going with this. 

Anyway, it was a fun time. Part of what I hope to do today is spend a little time cleaning up some of the prose in my story. I wrote it very fast for an anthology and I'm kind of surprised my writers' group didn't catch some of my repetitive language, etc. But, some of that is less obvious when you read it, than when you read it OUT LOUD. Several times!

I think I need more coffee to be more articulate. Feel free, local and other Convergence attending folks, to drop me a comment about what you love (or don't) about Convergence lately.

AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

Wise Woman Photo Shoot

Oct. 17th, 2025 02:40 pm
pegkerr: (Default)
[personal profile] pegkerr
One of the suggestions I received this year for a Year of Adventure event from my friend John Walsh was the offer of a photo shoot. I've seen examples of what are called 'Crone,' 'Goddess' or 'Wise Woman' photo shoots, and the idea really appealed to me, as I wanted to spend this year exploring the gift of growing older. So John picked me up right before dusk, and we had a wonderful time shooting pictures along Minnehaha Creek, and on the outskirts of the Peace Garden, just across the street from the Lake Harriet Rose Garden.

I'm quite pleased with the pictures. What do you think?

Wise Woman Photo Shoot )

2025 52 Card Project: Week 41: Eagles

Oct. 17th, 2025 12:31 pm
pegkerr: (All we have to decide is what to do with)
[personal profile] pegkerr
This past week included another Year of Adventure event: I took a day trip with my friends Eleanor Arnason and her partner Patrick Wood to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota.

It was a splendid day for a drive--crystal clear, and a comfortable temperature. We had hoped for fall colors, but the warm weather in September meant that the trees were rather muted in tone. Fortunately, we could still take pleasure in the sepia browns of the corn fields, the languidly blowing grasses, and the water sparkling brilliantly from the surface of Lake Pepin. Eleanor and Patrick told stories of road trips taken in the past as I drove.

We stopped at Lark Toys for lunch, where the carved carousel was duly admired and delicious fudge was purchased to savor later. From there, we went to the National Eagle Center and listened to the interpreter's explanations about the eagles, their habits and life cycle. The eagles they had on site had permanent injuries that prevented their rehabilitation into the wild, but as eagles spend almost 90% of their time in the wild simply perching, watching the world around themselves, they were apparently content.

The second floor had exhibits examining the importance of eagles as symbols in both Native American and United States culture.

We resisted buying any of the adorable toy eagles in the gift shop, but it was a near thing.

Then, to my astonishment, Eleanor and Patrick directed me to a side road not far away where they happened to know of a hidden buffalo reserve that had a herd of about 150 bison. It didn't take us long to find a herd, and I got some pictures from the road.

A successful day, we decided as I drove us home. We will take more road trips together in the future.

Image description: Background: A buffalo skin mounted on a wall, painted by a Native American artist with eagle symbology. Center: Eleanor Arnason and Patrick Wood. Lower center: several buffalo, seen from the side. Overlaid over the buffalo: an injured bald eagle sits on a perch.

Eagles

41 Eagles

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

COVID Booster Achievement UNLOCKED

Oct. 16th, 2025 06:29 pm
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
I love my state.

I just walked into CVS, asked for the booster, and got it. No fuss, no cost.

Of course, now the RFK, Jr. is trying to take the aluminium out of vaccines, I kind of think I should just walk in every day and ask 'em what they've got for me and just take it. Hopefully, at some point the booster will show up on Docket, the vaccine tracker app that I downloaded. Also, I hope that at some point Wisconsin will join the states that are reporting and I can see all the things I had as a child.

Anyway, how are you?

I never ended up writing up my Wednesday reading blog so I will tell you about my feelings about How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu which I listened to via audiobook. This was another book that felt to me like mainstream fiction masquerading as science fiction. It was BETTER at being science fiction than, say, Station Eleven, by which I mean that the future seemed slightly more thought out/plausible. Although, like all of these fake SF books (and I shouldn't call them that, but they're lit fic SF, not SF SF), the SF elements were entirely backdrop to the emotional stuff--and then there were the occasional suspender snapping moments, like the weird place people seemed to go when they were in a disease induced coma.

So, the plot, simply, was: "I want to write about COVID without writing about COVID, so how about a plague that comes from a melting permafrost that is actually far more deadly?" And, then Nagamatsu wrote a bunch of vignettes about death, dying, and grief with vaguely science fictional settings, like the Disney World death park, where parents would take terminally ill children to give them one last happy day before murdering them on a rollercoaster. I mean, this was a tough book to get through? But, there was a lot that I ended up finding compelling because this is one of the few books we have that address our collective trauma over COVID. There is literally a couple in one of the chapter vignettes which is comprised of an EMT worker and a pathologist and it's about how, really, this is the worst timeline for both their jobs and it f*cks them up in different ways.

Spoiler for the end of How High We Go in the Dark )
The book I'm listening to now is Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson, which is 100% a Murderbot fanfic, again, masquerading as lit fic. The schtick here is that robots now live among us, but really don't. (This is clearly the Preservation side of things, where people sort of accept that robots are human-like, but also treat them as disposable, etc.) Robots now do the jobs no one wants--in the protag's case, it's dentistry. They are programmed to be perfectly pleasant enough and human enough, but have a definite termination date. This robot wakes up one morning with an error, it has spontaneously generated the number of teeth, on average, it will clean/care for until its retirement (which in this case is PERMANENT retirement, not freedom from service.) And the number is counting down with every new day. The robot immediately requests to have a hard reboot, but the error isn't considered significant enough to warrant a memory wipe. I've only just started this novel, but it's clear that this is an exploration of mortality and community--as the robot isn't supposed to have feelings, but it's clearly developing them.

I've been sticking with it, because who doesn't love a Murderbot fanfic?

Up at the cabin, I also read a bunch of manga. Probably nothing to really write home about, however? (As always, I am keeping tabs over at Mangakast--https://mangakast.wordpress.com/-- if you do want ot know the details.) The guy who wrote that weird little second chances manga, Hirayasumi, that I loved has (or had, I don't actually know which came first off the top of my head) another short series about two aliens who come to Earth on an invasion scouting mission, but decide (as one does) that Earth is kind of too cool to try to oppress called Tokyo Alien Bros. Although, interestingly--and I'm not sure I've seen this really dealt with in another manga--one of the aliens decides it would be fun to be the other gender for a day, nearly gets raped, and has a profound change of heart about the goodness of humankind. What is notable about this, is that previously this particular character was the playboy of the two brothers and was kind of a love 'em and leave 'em sort. So, it's shockingly self-reflective for this kind of humor manga, actually? I am very on the fence about whether I liked Tokyo Alien Bros because, where Hirayasumi has this lovely, slow pace, Tokyo Alien Bros is kind of all over the place. 

Otherwise, I've been catching up with the anime that they made of The Summer Hikaru Died, which is a weird combination of horror and gay romance. The anime is now past where I've read in the manga and I'm getting the vibe that maybe part of the tension in the story is that the not-Hikaru character, the guy who loves the monster that returned in Hikaru's body--his dad might be gay, too? Which... would be kind of a cool twist because it would explain why the main character is so gloomy and depressed. It seems like maybe the family is split/not split. Dad has taken a job as a lumberjack and that keeps him away from home a lot, and mom is clearly DONE with dad on some level, but this is a small, SMALL village and so they aren't broken u/separated. And, it's been a weird thing in the background that I'd been reading as "oh, an affair," but after a scene from last night's episode, I'm thinking, "OH! A gay affair!"

Anyway, I'm probably wrong. But, it will be interesting to see if they go there.

I should probably read the manga again and see if I can suss it out. It looks like the manga is maybe still ongoing, though.

So, yeah. I'm about to head into my writers' group Zoom. Tonight is Pendragons (not Wyrdsmiths.) Pendragons is a group I started during the pandemic and includes folks from all over the country. When Laurie Winter was still in Montana, I think we had all the continental US time zones covered, which is kind of cool. 

K. Goodnight. Hope you have a good one.

Upcoming Gig (November 2)

Oct. 14th, 2025 08:14 am
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
While I was at Gaylaxicon, an email went out form Cole Sarar (she/they) who runs Sci-Fi Reading Hour desperately looking for any author who might be up for a performance in early November. I checked my calendar right away because I really enjoyed [personal profile] naomikritzer 's performance last year. I wrote about this here, but this is the gig where Cole pairs a musician and an author together. In Naomi's case, it was like getting to watch a radio play because the musician had the ability to do sound effects and she had reworked the piece so that Cole and she could share the narrative.

At any rate, ever since then, I've been thinking about what of mine might work for something like this. I don't write a lot of short stories, though I have written some. The short stories I have written don't tend to get very broad distribution (by which I mean, I have yet to truly break into any kind of traditional short story market. The one I did get in in the 1990s? SF AGE? Now defunct.) A few years ago, I wrote something for one of [personal profile] rachelmanija 's projects that I really loved. It was about a supervillain trying to adopt a cat. It's very silly and tonally and conceptually, the complete opposite of [personal profile] naomikritzer 's "A Year Without Sunshine," so I had no idea if that would appeal to Cole. But, I was recently reminded at Diversicon that one of my strengths is humor. I decided to take a chance and I sent that along with a note that said, "You're probably already booked, but in case not, I'm up for it, and here's the piece I'm considering performing."

I don't know if I was, in fact, the only one to reply or if my being ready with a specific piece made me more appealing than any others who jumped in, but I got the gig.

I will, of course, be reminding you as this gets closer, but for your records here's the pertenent information: the performance will be Sunday, November 2 at the Bryant-Lake Bowl & Theater (https://www.bryantlakebowl.com/). Doors open at 6 pm and the show starts at 7 pm. There will be a post-show interview with both the writer and the musician at 8:00 pm. Cost is $10 in advance and $15 at the door*. (Braynt-Lake Bowl has its November calendar up, but this show isn't, for obvious reasons, up yet.)

Also, my co-performer will be the lovely and talented Scott Keever who says this about himself: Scott Keever is an award-winning guitarist and composer from Minneapolis. He has specialized in solo guitar, primarily fingerstyle, utilizing resophonic, classical, jazz and folk guitar sounds in his explorations while also focusing on Celtic and Eastern European styles. His stylistic range can be heard on his solo albums "Solo Guitar: Vol. 1" (2018) and “Solo Guitar: Vol. 2” (2022) (both available on Spotify and Apple Music) As well as being a solo performer, Scott plays guitar, Bulgarian tambura and oud for Orkestar Bez Ime (OBI), an award-winning Twin Cities band that specializes in Balkan dance music. He is also currently a member of chamber pop group Follow The Firefly and has recently worked with Ukrainian Village Band. He has been a long-time musician and performer in the local Minnesota theater scene and has appeared in productions with Brave New Workshop, Flying Foot Forum, Walking Shadow Theater, Ethnic Dance Theater, O’Shea Irish Dance and Table Salt Productions. He has also composed music for short films, documentaries, theater, radio and podcasts.

If that sweetens the deal for you. Please come if you're interested, yada yada, but what I really wanted to tell you about was the rehearsal yesterday morning. 

Our schedules are such that all of us were available in the morning. We met at Cole's South Minneapolis house at 10:00 am. 

It is always a challenge for me to navigate Minneapolis. When I first moved to the Cities, I lived in Minneapolis, but now, after decades of living in St. Paul, I find that whatever fey creatures rule the leylines of Minneapolis have rejected me. GPS mostly helps? It still managed to lie to me about which side of the street Cole's house was on so I spent several confused minutes trying to decide whether or not we were actually supposed to meet at the taco shop at the corner, or what. But, thanks to my chronic fear of being late, I had plenty of time to figure it out and managed to arrive nearly precisely on time.

Cole's house is a typical Minneapolis two-story affair. (How do I describe this to out-of-towners? A lot of our houses in the Twin Cities are older, at least by Midwestern standards, so I'd guess this was a Craftsman era house--early 1900s.)  Cole did not offer the full house tour, but I was immediately at home to see a dining room table full of art supplies and other child-friendly detrius. It was a lovely, lived-in house. We chatted about this and that while waiting for Scott to arrive. Cole's ethnic heritage is Turkish and so she offered Turkish tea. I've had (and loved) Turkish coffee, but I was very intregued by Turkish tea, so I said yes immediately.  During that conversation I learned that their father immigrated from Istanbul, but never became a US Citizen. We spent some time trying to decide if that made her a first generation immigrant or second. We settled on one and a half, which I found amusing. 

Scott arrived in an extroverted, (likely) undiagnosed ADHD clamor. I, of course, liked him immediately. But, between Scott and I, thoughtful Cole had a tendency to get left behind as conversation lept from subject to subject without even a pause for a breath. I spend at least part of the time pausing Scott to make sure Cole--OUR ACTUAL HOST--was included.

I'm pretty sure that Cole hoped for this rehersal to be no more than an hour and a half, but we ended up going three hours. 

Whew.

The way this show works Cole will also read something, so we started by listening to their story. They had sent us something ahead of time, but as Scott and I sat on the floor listening it was very clear that what she sent was NOT this story. After it was over we had a laugh because Cole had been saying that the piece they wrote "matched" mine in tone, but what we'd gotten in the email was so much DARKER that I spent some time thinking, "Wow, well maybe humor wasn't as self-evident as I thought?" But, no, it was just a clerical error. Cole had accidentally sent us the piece that had gone with the previous month's show! 

I read my piece and then we spent a little time trying to figure out the order if the show, who would read first, etc. That's all still up in the air, and I don't think it really much matters. I think Cole's piece is longer than mine, but we need to fill an hour one way or the other.

Then, somehow, the conversation got on Neil Gaiman and that whole horror show and I discovered I have a ton of friends in common with Scott thanks to his association with Cat's Laughing and the general Venn Diagram of nerds, music, and Renaissance Festival. 

It was a good time, but ran late and so then I made a tactical financial error by suggesting to Mason that we hit his favorite Korean fried chicken place for lunch. We had a great time and great food, but this--it turned out--was not the time of the month to splurge. Money is a huge argument in my household and so the rest of the evening was not nearly as fun as how the day started. 

Captialism, man. I could really do without it.



=====

*If you're local and want to go but can't afford it, let me know. I have two comp tickets as part of the package. My wife never attends my readings and my son will be out of town, and I hate to waste these.

Up at the Cabin, Quilt Show Edition

Oct. 11th, 2025 04:16 pm
lydamorehouse: (crazy eyed Renji)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 buckeye butterfly
Image: Buckeye butterfly

My family and I are up at our friends' cabin for the weekend. 

These are the friends of ours who have a lovely place with a natural shoreline (which they planted and meticulously mantain) on Crooked Lake in Siren, Wisconsin. At the far end of their property there is what I believe is a "smooth aster" (the native version of a purple aster.) It has attracted so many butterflies this year, it's not even funny. We've seen the buckeye pictured above as well as a painted lady, a clouded sulpher, and (and this might sound strange,) my favorite, this chonk of a moth, the corn ear worm moth.

corn ear worm moth
Yep, total pest. Turns into chonk floof, baby mothra. 

The dock is all pulled in, of course, so we've been amusing ourselves in other ways. In the nearby town of Weber, there is a quilt show. Ihave reported on this event in the past. It's very small town, in the best way? We're talking about tables set up in the local high school, staffed by little old ladies and a (bad) taco bar serving food for $5.00 in the cafeteria. The whole event kind of smells like Oretaga taco seasoning, but there are rows and rows of quilts with "artist statements" like, "I thought this pattern would be fun to try. WRONG. So I put it in craft jail for a few years, but this year decided to finish it. So here it is. Enjoy." These ladies (and some gents) really don't mince words when it comes to their quilts. Another one read, "Not much to say. Just need to use up my scraps." Then it will look like this:

yellow quilt, Weber 2025
Image: complex, bright yellow quilt.

Mason and I then went for a drive to check out Clam Dam, which, frankly, is the best name for any dam, anywhere as far as I'm concerned. 

 So far, a nice, chill vacation. Just what we needed post-Gaylaxicon.

How about you all? Up to anything fun?

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