(no subject)

Jul. 8th, 2025 06:01 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Good Job,

I work as a speech therapist. At a family gathering, I noticed my cousin’s near 4-year-old could only say a few words and beg and point for items they wanted. They could only say “juice” or “Pad” and would cry if any other relative tried to engage them in conversation. I asked my aunt if this was normal behavior for the child, and she said yes but that she wasn’t concerned. At nearly 4, a child should be using full sentences of at least three or more words. It is a missed milestone and early intervention is key.

I checked the local school district, and they offer free screenings and testing that my cousin’s child would qualify for. I went to my aunt and suggested that, in my professional opinion, her grandchild might benefit from speech therapy or at least testing to make sure it wasn’t some other underlying problem. It was completely free and I sent her the info. I didn’t go directly to my cousin because I know some parents can be thin-skinned and defensive when it comes to advice from licensed professionals. I had parents rage at teachers for suggesting their kids need glasses because they can’t see the board.

Well, for my troubles, my cousin sent me an awful and barely coherent text telling me I was a busybody; because I don’t have kids, my opinion is worthless; and she is a mother, so she knows all, and especially what is best for her child, who is perfect. I left it alone after that. The problem is that two years later, the child started kindergarten and was diagnosed with a severe speech impediment, and the rationed therapy the school gives hasn’t really helped. My cousin had to enroll her child with a private therapist that her insurance doesn’t cover and it is pretty pricey. I know all this through the grapevine.

Then, at a family event, my aunt and cousin went off on my poor mother about how awful and selfish I am for not volunteering and helping in their hour of need. I never told anyone about the text since I didn’t want drama, but I kept it. Frankly, I am furious. I tried to help, and I thought I was respectful enough by just going to my aunt with the free resources that were available to my cousin. I didn’t press, preach, or accuse. But now, at this late date, they think publicly blaming me and dragging my poor mother into it will work? I am ready to go to war and I have the receipts, should I?

—Not Holding My Tongue


Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Just went through the website and applied to everything I meet the minimum qualifications for, for what good it may do.

They could, in theory, save my information from one application to the next. They don't do that. They could also not require me to answer "where did you hear about this?" every time - but the joke's on them. "I went to your website and clicked on every job where I meet the minimum qualifications" is not an option, so I've just been lying and saying "hiring event" because that's the first choice. They will get no useful data from me, no thank you!

********************************


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Dungeon Crawler Carl books 4 & 5

Jul. 7th, 2025 11:19 pm
sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)
[personal profile] sholio
"The Gate of the Feral Gods" and "The Butcher's Masquerade." I'd say this series is pretty solidly scifi now, so I'm tagging it that way.

Random spoilers )

Moving on soon to book 6, "The Eye of the Bedlam Bride"! No future spoilers, please!
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay posting in [community profile] ladybusiness
Well, I made a reading list last month...how did I do? Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
is the constant whiplash between panic and popcorn.

Right now I'm hovering over "popcorn" - new political parties? With added drama and infighting? LOL, okay, let's see how that works out for you!

(Look, I need a break from panic now and again, and I will take my fun where it appears.)

******************


Read more... )

Progress Again at Last

Jul. 7th, 2025 09:53 pm
arlie: (Default)
[personal profile] arlie posting in [community profile] unclutter
I was making slow progress last year. But then my housemate was injured, and needed to use a walker for a while. Clearing space for the walker basically boxed in everything that she didn't need to access, including all my work in progress. I couldn't - and still can't - even close the door to my home office.

She's now almost completely recovered. The walker has been retired, and so has the cane that came after it. Last week I made a very small inroad into the surface mess in my office. I'd planned to work on that daily, but life happened. Until today.

Tonight I wanted to read a book. My book reading chair was well positioned for light in the morning, but not at all good when it's dark outside - artificial light sources near it are inadequate. So I kind of lost it, and attacked the mess.

Things that got moved to my bedroom from e.g. the living room to make space for the walker have been consolidated or removed. The reading chair is in there, with a pair of plastic storage bins stacked as a coffee table beside it. A largish number of unread media have been evicted with extreme prejudice. The matching chair that was full of objects moved from the housemate's bedroom has been unburied, and moved to where the usable chair had been, still containing the smaller objects that had been in/on it. I asked the housemate to clean them up eventually - no hurry - and she promptly shoved them into plastic storage boxes and carried them off.

There's more still to do - e.g. backfilling the place the second chair was with stuff from a heap on top of a rocking chair, or perhaps moving the whole heap there, chair and all. And I'm not entirely satisfied with the new location of my laundry hamper. But I can read comfortably in the late evenings, without sitting at the dining room table in a less comfy chair.

I'm physically tired, and I imagine my back will be screaming at me tomorrow. I've doubtless inhaled enough dust to give a susceptible person an asthma attack. But both my bedroom and the living room feel somewhat less like warehouses, particularly my bedroom. (I feel like it's all mine again at last, even though essentially all the junk that was blocking it up was mine rather than ours.) Phew!

Recent reading

Jul. 7th, 2025 08:41 pm
troisoiseaux: (reading 7)
[personal profile] troisoiseaux
Currently reading Days of the Dead by Barbara Hambly, one of her Benjamin January historical mysteries, usually set in 1830s New Orleans, although this one sees newlyweds January and Rose take a busman's honeymoon to Mexico to rescue their friend Hannibal Sefton, who has been accused of murder. Enjoying this! It's very Gothic: the mad patriarch ruling over his isolated hacienda with an iron fist, where pretty much everyone else is on their way to madness if not already there; the picturesque ruins in the form of Aztec pyramids; and of course, People Getting Real Weird With Religion. So far, this book's historical cameo has been General Santa Anna, who I did not connect with the sea shanty "Santiana" until a reference to his nickname as "Napoleon of the West"; I've also noticed that Hambly has an apparent running joke with herself of slipping in the names of minor characters from Les Mis (e.g., Combeferre's Livery in Die Upon A Kiss) and assumed the French chef named Guillenormand was one of those, although the spelling differs slightly— and as this Guillenormand is a "heretic Revolutionist" who fled France upon the Bourbons' return to power, I doubt Hugo's Gillenormand would acknowledge any relation.

I'm approximately three-quarters through Dune and things have gotten really weird. (Jessica + the Water of Life ritual????) Also, oddly, this audiobook keeps slipping back and forth between using a full cast of different voice actors for the different characters and having a single narrator Doing Voices for all the characters, which has a very odd effect when it changes from scene to scene and the main narrator has a completely different way of reading, e.g., Count Fenring's verbal tic than the other, specific voice actor does. It has also introduced more of a soundscape, including (in a move so cliche it was accidentally funny) ambiguously exotic flute music when Paul's Fremen love interest Zendaya Chani was introduced. So far my favorite chapter/scene has been when Frank Herbert used one character's death to be like "AND IN THIS ESSAY I WILL—" about ecology, via that guy's dying hallucinations of his dead father.

Anime Summer 2025: At the Start

Jul. 7th, 2025 05:27 pm
lovelyangel: Sayaka Saeki from Bloom Into You (Chibi Sayaka)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
Ayumu Niikura
Should we tell her that DSLRs are passé?
Ayumu Niikura
CITY the Animation, Episode 1

I used to start every anime season with an orderly sampling of every new show – and begin the evaluation of which shows I’ll follow through the season. I no longer have the time nor patience, and my schedule is highly stressed this month. At the moment I’m just randomly viewing shows, looking for quick decisions. Orderly, this is not.

However, there are some continuing series that I will definitely be watching. Most will fall into my Time Permitting list. Later on, I’ll figure out my mandatories. I don’t even have to sample the shows. So I’m seeding the Time Permitting list with:

Dan Da Dan S2 (Thu)
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus (Sat)
My Dress-Up Darling S2 (Sat)
I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince... S2 (Wed)
The Rising of the Shield Hero S4 (Wed)

Special note for CITY the Animation. KyoAni is one of my favorite studios, and Sakuga Blog has done stellar work in doing a deep dive with CITY the Animation Production Notes 01. As always, their stuff is worth reading.

New Shows I’ve Sampled, Below This Cut )

I’ve been too busy to do my final writeup for the Spring Anime Season. Sorry!

Bonus: Looking ahead – New Trailer for Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End S2
sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey)
[personal profile] sovay
In the appendices of Alzina Stone Dale's 1984 edition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Muriel St. Clare Byrne's Busman's Honeymoon (1936), reproduced for the first time from a handwritten sheet by Sayers with an additional scribble from Byrne, I have found perhaps the greatest production note I have read in a playscript in my life:

Warning

The murder contrivance in Act III Scene 2 will not work properly unless it is sufficiently weighted. It is therefore GENUINELY DEADLY.

Producers are earnestly requested to see that the beam, chain & attachments & the clearance above the head of the actor playing CRUTCHLEY are thoroughly tested at every performance
immediately before the beginning of the Scene, in order to avoid a POSSIBLY FATAL ACCIDENT.

How is it that in this our era of infinite meta when See How They Run (2022) was a real film that came out in theaters and not someone's especially clever Yuletide treat no Sayers fan has ever worked this note into a fictional production of Busman's Honeymoon where the blasphemed aspidistra exacted a worse revenge than corroded soot? I don't want to write it, I'm just amazed no one's taken advantage of it. I wouldn't mind knowing either if the 1988 revival with Edward Petherbridge and Emily Richards found a way of reproducing the effect without risking their Crutchley, since Byrne's "Note to Producers" describes the stage trick in technical detail down to the supplier of the globes for the lamp and she still agreed with Sayers—she wanted the warning inserted before the relevant scene in the acting edition—that it could wreck an actor if not set up with belt-and-braces care. Otherwise I am most entertained so far that according to Dale, while the collaboration between the two women was much more mutual than an author and her beta-reader, Byrne characteristically put in the stage business and directions which it seems Sayers was less inclined to write than dialogue. This same edition includes Sayers' solo-penned and previously unpublished Love All (1941) and testifies to the further treasury of the Malden Public Library, whose poetry section when we were directed to it turned out to be a miscellany of anthologies, plays, and biographies shading into what used to be shelved as world literature. I have three more Christies for my mother, another unfamiliar Elizabeth Goudge, another unfamiliar Elleston Trevor, some nonfiction on an angle of women's war work and the Battle of the Atlantic that I actually know nothing about, and the summer play of Christopher Fry's seasonal quartet. I am running on about a fifth of a neuron at this point, but [personal profile] rushthatspeaks bought me ice cream.

ack, sorry I forgot to post

Jul. 7th, 2025 06:03 pm
unicornduke: (Default)
[personal profile] unicornduke
Hey all, if you'd like to join the crafting hangout, it is tonight from 6-8pm ET!
 
Video encouraged but not required!
 
Topic: Crafting Hangout
Time: Mondays 6:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
 
Join Zoom Meeting
 
Meeting ID: 973 2674 2763

Poem: "Tomato Seedlings in Tin Cans"

Jul. 7th, 2025 04:48 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the June 3, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "growth" square in my 6-2-25 card for the Pride Fest bingo. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony Barrette. It belongs to the series Daughters of the Apocalypse.

Read more... )

Books read, July 2025

Jul. 7th, 2025 03:28 pm
brithistorian: (Default)
[personal profile] brithistorian
  • 7 July
    • Wolf Hall: A Novel (Hilary Mantel)

365 Questions 2025

Jul. 7th, 2025 04:16 pm
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
4. What is the most valuable life lesson you learned from your parents? You have to be independent because you can't depend on other people who should care about you to have your back.

5. What does love feel like? It feels safe.

6. What are your favorite simple pleasures? Reading a book, eating ice cream, watching a good show, going for a walk on a nice day.

7. If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would you tell? Your life will turn out in ways you could never imagine.
nanila: me (Default)
[personal profile] nanila
I have been struggling to concentrate today. It was hard not to spiral back to that day. I had been living in London (and therefore the UK) for less than a year. I spent much of the day unable to contact family and friends to reassure them I was OK because the mobile networks were overwhelmed. I remember walking the crowded streets to meet friends and my then-partner. The faces of the shuffling Londoners. The relentless wail of sirens.

I'm coping by watching the BBC documentary series on the bombings. For some reason I need some kind of external validation for feeling the way I do today and this is providing it.

(Access locked) Posts from that date: DW, LJ

Here is what I wrote on the 8th of July, 2005. I don't think I agree with myself here, not entirely. I was rationalising my own fear. The body count is also the point.

Terrorism isn't about the reality of statistics. Of the several million people living in or visiting the greater London area, a tiny percentage were physically hurt or killed by the bombings. A slightly larger percentage witnessed them firsthand, and a huge number of them were temporarily inconvenienced by the shutdown of the London Transport system. The chances that the next bus or tube journey that the average Londoner makes will have a bomb on it are not much greater than they were yesterday or will be tomorrow. But, as I said, this is not about statistics. It's about the perception of statistics. However miniscule your chances were and are of being blown to bits by a terrorist attack, they are now at the forefront of your mind, whether you want them to be or not.

Terrorism isn't about the frequency of occurrence of terrorist acts, or of similar kinds of attacks made during open war. Londoners of different generations experienced the Blitz and the IRA bombings of the 1980s. Many of them have been through this before. However, it is the very unpredictability of terrorism that makes it so frightening, that makes a return to normalcy as difficult as it was the last time, because the ordinary citizen has no way of knowing when, where or if another attack will happen.

People deal with this in a myriad of ways. Some become defiant, others resigned. Some find themselves swallowing down fear for weeks, months or years after the events, every time they board a bus or enter an Underground station. This is the real point of terrorist attacks, not the body count. All emotional responses are fully permissible, but it is the way that we act upon them that will determine whether or not we build a world in which the slight probability of terrorist attack on the average citizen will continue to be a weapon that can wield so much power.

Bee Food Flowers

Jul. 7th, 2025 03:11 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Scientists’ top 10 bee-magnet blooms—turn any lawn into a pollinator paradise

Botanists from the University of Copenhagen and the UK set out to find the best flower combinations for bees and hoverflies.
Danish and Welsh botanists sifted through 400 studies, field-tested seed mixes, and uncovered a lineup of native and exotic blooms that both thrill human eyes and lure bees and hoverflies in droves, offering ready-made recipes for transforming lawns, parks, and patios into vibrant pollinator hotspots
.


Below are the plants recommended for European and United Kingdom uses...

Read more... )

(no subject)

Jul. 7th, 2025 04:10 pm
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
After a couple of cooler low humidity nights, it's back to more normal conditions for this time of year: stifling humid nights when the temperature doesn't fall below about 74°F/24°C. Ugh. I think we had a tiny bit of rain during the night and I know it rained lightly for a while this morning, but the rain just helped the humidity stay high.

I've been working away at flower granny squares for the last few days. I get one done every day while I'm watching a show, and I've basically got the pattern memorised now.

Monday Update 7-7-25

Jul. 7th, 2025 02:10 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Artwork of the wordsmith typing. (typing)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "An Interest in the Affairs of Your Government"
Poem: "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness"
Poem: "Always Surprised by Consequences"
Poem: "No Such Thing as Finished"
Geology
Birdfeeding
Today's Smoothie
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Government
Fireworks
Writing About Fireworks
Birdfeeding
Follow Friday 7-4-25: Historical Fiction
Blazing the Trail: Celebrating Indigenous Fire Stewardship
Birdfeeding
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Problem-Solving
Hard Things

"Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 41 comments. "Not a Destination, But a Process" has 146 comments. "The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean" has 95 comments.


[community profile] sunshine_revival is running through July. See the schedule, meet the moderators, and use the master post to navigate the event. Meet new folks in the friending meme. Spread the word!

Sunshine-Revival-2025-Banner-3.png

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 1: Light
Poem: "The Pleasure of Escaping the Responsibility"

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 2: Tunnel of Love
Poem: "Legs of Grass, Feet of Flowers"


[community profile] summerofthe69 is now open! You can see the calendar here and the current themes are Tetris 69 and Body Worship 69.


"In the Heart of the Hidden Garden" is now complete! Lawrence shows Stan more of his favorite places.


The weather has been variable here. It rained yesterday and last night. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a pair of mourning doves, a male cardinal, a gray catbird, a fox squirrel, a skunk, and at least 1 probably 2 bats. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, wild strawberries, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, impatiens, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, anise hyssop, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, Asiatic lilies, cucumber, snowball bush, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, narrow-leaf mountain mint, black-eyed Susan, yellow coneflower, wild bergamot, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant. Daylilies are done blooming. Cucumbers, tomatillo, and pepper have green fruit. The first 'Chocolate Sprinkles' tomato ripened and some other tomatoes are showing color. Wild strawberries, mulberries, peas, and blackberries are ripe. Black raspberries are done.

The Quatloo Economy

Jul. 7th, 2025 03:42 pm
feldman: (cake or death)
[personal profile] feldman
For a long time the only Orwell I'd read was Down and Out in Paris and London, and the power of that book is the inside/outside view it gives on how the machinery of exploitation functions on the ground. The constant exhausting useless work of being poor was already familiar to me as a teen. All these time-wasting rigged games of survival serve to manufacture and control a desperate labor pool that demeans, crushes, and ultimately indifferently slaughters human beings. A system is what it does, after all.

The slog to find a job continues to grind my very goddamned soul. I feel like a filter trap for cognitive dissonance, crushingly frustrated by such conundrums as how to be charming and reassuringly competent while curbing vast amounts of anxiety and rage at the state of, well, everything being mismanaged to hell and back in a glory of destruction.

"Our interview in 20min is cancelled, as we're suddenly not funding this position after all."

"Can you show me your home office? No, I don't have any technical questions about your set-up, I just want to see it for reasons."

"My camera is 'glitchy' (so weird that this always happens!) so you'll be performing engaging humanity to a default blank pfp and your own strained countenance."

"Oh we're owned by a private equity firm, so we believe we're shielded from the 'current instability' in related fields. I will not take it well when you ask for the PE firm's name."

"I'm actually remote/contract HR, so I can't tell you anything about that location, team, work environment, or current challenges this position is meant to address. Please be specific about how you would contribute to our business."

"Sell yourself to us, why should we hire you?"
That one pissed me off, it totally came off as 'dance for us, monkey'. Real talk here, I give sommelier energy. I care way more for the craftsmanship and artistry of the product than the sale of it. I did well with luxury treats to middle class punters, and both are in short supply these days. So yeah, if you need a successful impromptu sales pitch about the thing we've already been discussing for forty minutes -- namely my interest and qualifications for a non-sales or even development-adjacent role at a nonprofit -- then we should both not waste our time.

But wasting time is partly what this is all about, isn't it? 
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