ameliaponders | Reading

Proof of Life

It's been a minute, so I decided to touch down for at least half of another minute.

In brief: before I even got past the third Dr. Who, and despite doing my damnedest to avoid any spoilers, I read the wrong headline *shakes fist at The Guardian*, so I'm avoiding actually watching the remaining episodes until I can bear to watch them. That's not logical in the least, but there you go.

Acting on advice from

lilacsigil , I adjusted my AO3 Stray Kids fanfic's fandom tag, taking it out of SKZ fandom and tagging it as part of music video fandom. I also cut my note so that it didn't sound so awfully condescending. That made me feel better. It also gave me the chance to do a bit of editing, and that was even better. I'm not sure I'll post it here. I have to see if my conflicting impulses eventually pan out that way.

We have one of our old bachelor friends coming over this afternoon; he wants help navigating his computer, which Bob will handle. He also wants help understanding his smartphone, and that's going to be my responsibility. This gentleman has previously had a flip phone, or some kind of dumb mobile; he really doesn't like mobiles, but I think he finally admitted that they're necessary in modern life, and so he got the smartphone, and now he needs help navigating it. We'll see if I can help him out.

I think that's all, but I hope to post again later today.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Bill Evans

kaffy_r

Happy Birthday, Mum

This is Mary Glen Keirstead Routliffe Stirling. She was born on May 30, 1927, in Greenwich, Nova Scotia, Canada. For most of her life, she lived within 10.5 miles of the house where a midwife delivered her.* Nova Scotia was where she died, on Oct. 27, 2013. Nova Scotia was her home.

In the 13 years since she died, I've generally remembered her on the anniversary of her death, and I'll undoubtedly do that again. But today, when she would have turned 98 if she hadn't moved on, I wanted to turn my face to the sky and sing Happy Birthday to her. I hope she and my stepdad, Rob Stirling, young and beautiful again as they were when they fell in love, are together.

And I like to think that after a modest dinner at a modest heavenly restaurant, with a birthday cake that has all the taste and none of the calories, that they will leave the restaurant, and dance together, twirling and laughing, in the stars.

I love you, Mum.

*She spent a short time in Montreal as a newly minted nurse, and later, in the years she was married to my father, she lived in or around Mont Joli, Quebec. Together, those probably consisted of no more than five years.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ateez, "Say My Name"

kaffy_r

Orange Cake and Daily Tasks

Very quickly, because I'm busy rewatching a Korean music group challenge show (because of course I am), I wanted to announce to a waiting world that the second time I baked this particular orange cake, it was just as good as the first time. I am satisfied.

Today was supposed to be the first day that I gathered up all the paperwork we need to prepare Bob's Canadian permanent residence application. I ended up dealing with other things, but I hope it wasn't just a case of me trying to avoid a tough job. It's undoubtedly not nearly as tough as my fears make it seem. I'm going to do my best tomorrow to get the job done. Then Bob and I will figure out the following day's tasks wrt the application. We figured that we'd try to tackle one job each every day, and we're going to try to stick to that.

Well, except for me, obviously. Sigh.

Wish us both luck tomorrow.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Kingdom: Legendary War

kaffy_r

Once Again, I Remember.

There are thousands upon thousands of men and women across the country's military branches who have given their lives in defense of the nation, or as victims of the country's necessary and unnecessary wars. This day is complicated, especially for someone who grew up in Canada, where solemn remembrance of such losses are marked on Nov. 11.

Over the years, I've come to mark Memorial Day in two ways. I honor those people, so many of them young, who gave the last full measure of devotion in wars. And I also remember people who I lost. So here are two essays I wrote in previous years.

*** *** ***

Memorial Day: It's Complicated

( It's complicated. )

*** *** ***

I Remember: A Personal Memorial Day

( I Miss Them )

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: the home office

kaffy_r

Bread Worked Out. Plus 2024 Ateez Coachella Performances Located

Yes, I am but a tiny speck on this globe, and my successes and failures are as unimportant as can possibly be imagined. Still, one takes one's victories where one can find them, she said pretentiously.

First the bread. I went back to a Kitchen Aid recipe for two loaves of white bread. I'd previously had minimal success with it, but I wasn't going to fool around with a completely new recipe, and potentially lose more ingredients, a la yesterday's whole wheat bread failure (I'm not going to call it a debacle, because I've learned from it.)

I was pleasantly surprised, to put it mildly. I paid a great deal of attention to the heat of the liquid into which I was supposed to put the dry yeast, and I'm embarrassed to say that was something I previously failed to do well. And surprise! The bread came together and rose beautifully, not just during the first rise, but during the final rise. They're now out of the oven and they look spectacularly ordinary, which was what I was aiming for. Huzzah!

The second bit of success was within the field of my latest obsession, the KPop group called Ateez. Like SKZ, they have eight members, and they debuted just a bit later (Oct. 24, 2018) than Stray Kids (March 25, 2018). The two groups are very friendly, despite working under different entertainment agencies.

Ateez songs, choreography, and lore differ noticeably from SKZ; to my ears, they're just a hair rougher than their hyungs. Both groups have labored under peoples' view of them as noisy, and I think that's one of the reasons they appreciate each other. But I digress. I was trying to find videos of one or both weekends they performed at Coachella 2024. It was difficult, but the KPop subreddit came to my rescue. And since Bob agreed to watch one of the performances with me, I now have something to show him. Again - huzzah!

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ateez, "Say My Name" on repeat

kaffy_r

George Floyd

It's been five years since George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin. Little has changed, except to get worse.

The racist rot runs deep in this country - arguably it's one of the rotten support beams holding the United States up. Perhaps we can change that, and create support beams that partake of justice, but these days I'm not overly optimistic.

I remember George Floyd. I mourn him, at least in that way that a strange white woman can mourn him. I hope other strange white women, and white men, and others who aren't Black Americans can also mourn. And perhaps starting working for something better.

Current Mood: morose
Current Location: the home office

kaffy_r

Entertaining: the Art of Maintaining Spoons

We had a young friend over for supper tonight. He's a reporter I've known for a few years. He's very good at what he does, although I sometimes wonder if he fully realizes it. He is an immigrant, whose family came to the U.S. when he was fairly young, and he's worked through some challenges, and done so very well, in my opinion. He recently became an American citizen.

I put together some slow-cooker beef bourguignon (well, it started that way, but I added a lot more than just red wine, plus vegetables that don't normally go into that dish), and an orange cake, put the place generally to rights, with Bob's help. I'd hoped to dust the living room, but Bob got the carpet vacuumed, and that made the place presentable.

For a wonder, everything was ready when our friend got here. It's been some time (as in, a few years) since we've had him over. We truly are hermits; we have friends who we haven't interacted with for horribly long periods of time ... anyhow, last week I ran into him at a social event for people who work for one of the local online news outlets I do stringer work for. He was feeling fairly down for various reasons, and asked if I could give him a hug. Well, that did it for me; I had to have him over for supper.

We had a really enjoyable time with him, for a couple of hours, and then I had to bring the evening to a close. The physical reason was because my back was starting to suggest that I should find some heat or ice as soon as possible. The mental and emotional reason was that I abruptly lost every one of my remaining spoons and I needed to be alone with Bob, STAT.

It happens to me, and to Bob. We still enjoy entertaining people, albeit not nearly as much as we used to, when we had a larger place, but it's always been tiring, and these days it's even more so. Entertaining people means you have to put your own best foot forward; you have to be on, in order to make sure your guests have a good time, to make sure you're listening to them, to make sure you're not talking too much at their expense, and so much more. And yes, you work hard to present yourself as an excellent host.

It is fucking exhausting. It's fun, but only for a given amount of time. Once that last spoon is gone? It's time to beat a determined retreat.

And that's what I'm about to do. Painkillers and heating pads, ho!

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ateez, "Inception"

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ameliaponders

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Spaceship of the Imagination

Reading

Dept. of Brief

Dept. of Remembrance

Dept. of Kitchen Work

Dept. of Holy Days

Dept. of Sunday Success

Dept. of Remembrance

Dept. of Social Interaction

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May 2014

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