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In honor of my mother posting the first "no one fills mom's stocking" guilt trip of the season, please help me brain storm stocking stuffers for my mother. (Sympathies as I bang my head against the wall also accepted.)
Rules:
No food. No drink. One of her doctors said she's per-diabetic and no number of other doctors saying her blood work doesn't support that will convince her otherwise.
Nothing scented (no soap, lotion, perfume, candles, bath bombs, shower steamers, etc). She barely wears makeup and doesn't need any kind of brushes or similar. When she wants painted nails my sibling who does nail polish as a hobby paints them for her. She's happy with her minimal skin care routine and isn't interested in trying new products.
She's doesn't want nice stationary. She buys herself the kinds of pens she likes.
She doesn't need socks, slippers, hand towels, kitchen gear of any kind, flashlights, multi-tools, utility knives or box openers, playing cards, coloring books, art supplies, tote bags, luggage tags, book lights, battery packs for her phone, charging cables, or any of the similar things I've seen on suggested lists on the internet.
Last year I got everyone funny glasses cleaning cloths, a pack of those single use hand soap sheets you can toss in your bag for when there's no soap in the bathroom, and a pack of single use laundry soap sheets for when you need to do a quick sink wash of something (intended for travel). I think I'm the only person who has used any of them at all.
Why bother with the stocking stuffers at all, you might ask. I cannot take a single "no one fills mom's stocking" comment more. The passive-aggressive bullshit has gotten to me. I now must find two to five items my mom will likely use and are under $40 USD every year in addition to figuring out what I'm getting her off her list (which is mostly unhelpful "experiences" she will never actually make a plan with me to do.) | |
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I've signed up for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png) rec_cember! This new community, created by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) goodbyebird, is celebrating December with a month-long reccing fest. Come and join me if you want to share some fanwork recs during December. :D Rec-Cember - the month long multi-fandom reccing event. Let's recommend some fanworks! Let's appreciate and comment on those fanworks!
rec_cember . intro . sign ups | |
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 My FWF First Place Winner - Category: "Best Use of Prompt" - Shocktober Edition Title: Things Counter, Original, Spare, Strange Fandoms: due South, Wristcutters Rating: Mature Category: Gen, M/M Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski Characters: Robert "Bob" Fraser, Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski, mention of Uncle Tiberius Fraser, mention of Diefenbaker (the half-wolf, not the former Canadian Prime Minister), mention of Nanuk (from Wristcutters), mention of Raife Kneller (from Wristcutters) Word count: 400 (quadruple drabble) Summary: Sergeant Robert Fraser -- dead Robert Fraser -- knows first-hand that All Hallow’s Eve is when The Veil between the living and the dead is at its most thin...but he doesn't know anything about Halloween-themed sex toys until Ray Kowalski has something to say about it. Author's Notes: Written for the recurring Firewhiskey Fic Challenge, a 48-hour period during which fanworks creators drink "adult beverages" or "do the 420" and create their fanworks "under the influence" with no editing allowed. Participants then view all the fanworks and vote on them in the categories of Most Coherent Entry, Least Coherent Entry, Funniest Entry, Favorite Entry, Best Use of Prompt, and Best Smut. Fic on AO3. | |
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TOUR OF THE BORDERLAND
Introduction to the borderland
The borderland is the region where the Three Lands touch each other: Emor in the north, Koretia in the south, and Daxis in the southwest. Borderlanders are the people who live in the Emorian borderland, Koretian borderland, and Daxion borderland. Most borderlanders, though not all, are of mixed blood.
This is a phrase that sometimes confuses foreigners. The phrase does not refer to the mixing of blood that takes place during Koretian vow-making. Rather, "mixed blood" refers to land heritage. A person of mixed blood is descended from people of at least two different lands. In practice, as we shall see, all peninsulareans are of mixed blood, so this phrase actually refers to more recent blood-mixing.
Northern mainlanders who live in nations where skin color is accounted of great importance sometimes ask whether people of mixed blood can be identified by their skin color. The answer is a cautious maybe. If a dark-skinned Emorian – whose ancestors were born in the south, rather than the north – marries a dark-skinned Koretian, then the result, not surprisingly, is usually a dark-skinned child. Likewise, if a light-skinned Koretian marries a light-skinned Emorian, a light-skinned child is usually born. If a child has light brown skin, it might have a dark-skinned Koretian parent and a light-skinned Emorian parent. On the other hand, it might have a light-skinned Koretian parent and a dark-skinned Emorian parent. Or it may be that the color of its skin is determined, not by its parents, but by one of its four grandparents. Or – I cite myself as an example – a Koretian may have lighter skin than most other Koretians because he has spent many years living in the north, where there is less sunlight.
In short, don't make any assumptions about skin color and land heritage. If you want to know what land a peninsularean belongs to, it is best to ask.
The native tongue of most borderlanders is the ancient language called Border Koretian – though that language might just as easily have been called Border Daxion or Border Emorian, for Border Koretian is related to all three of the main peninsularean tongues. Border Koretian is a different language than the Common Koretian spoken by most Koretians. It is now used as a trade language in the Great Peninsula. If you plan to visit the borderland, it would be well worth your effort to learn Border Koretian, as that language will enable you to be understood by traders and most noblemen throughout the Great Peninsula. Speaking the language in the borderland, however badly, is an easy way to make yourself welcome.
[Translator's note: A good introduction to life in the borderland can be found in Law Links.]
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Since I last posted, my new phone sat there accusingly while I tried to ignore it. Then a friend said they'd have no idea and would need to take it to a shop to get it done, and I remembered I could get tech support!
Today a guy from GeeksOnWheels came by and struggled to get my wifi sorted so Apple would stop putting up warnings about "weak security". It took him four hours, and across much of that time I had no wifi to one or more of my devices (I'd planned ahead and downloaded fanfic). Eventually he decided my router was faulty, so I bought a new one from him and then it was resolved quickly (not a rip-off, he was very genuine). The call-out & router cost me almost as much as the new phone but it's done now and the phone (and my other devices) are working. Painless transfer of my data and apps, too. I'll need to update my iPad as well at some later point, but that should be manageable now the tricky stuff is sorted. So much for "user friendly" technology!
Got myself a Thai curry and gadogado via DoorDash as consolation for an angsty day, and now for an audiobook and arting session. Onwards!
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This week, a bluejay sticker by artist Featherbone. I love bluejays, and we are at the very, very end of our fall foliage.
This week felt kind of meh. It felt like I really didn't manage much of anything this week: I did no writing, I fell pretty behind here on DW, work felt like a constant game of catch-up. I did manage to get caught up to where I'd hoped to be on reading, though there were a few days that I struggled. Looking back, though, I did basically lose two entire nights to chasing the northern lights (one night very successful, one not so much), and that's likely a lot of why I feel like I did less than usual.
Goals for the week:
- I did read A Darker Shade of Magic
- I did not work on my reading page
- We did get some outdoor time, going on a nice hike
- I did not work on my pin boards
- I did not work on the snowflake outline
- I did a webinar thing for work
- I did my benefits enrollment for work
- I got some new branches for Clickbait
- I started reading Your Shadow Half Remains
- I watched Frankenstein, which I really did enjoy
Tracked habits:
- Work - 5/7
- Household Maintenance - 3/7
- Physical Activity - 2/7
- Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
- Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
- Meta Work - 5/7
- Personal Writing - 3/7
- Other Creative Things - 1/7
- Reading - 7/7 - mostly I read A Darker Shade of Magic, and started Your Shadow Half Remains, plus I read some of my ebook side-read; Alex and I read a pretty good chunk of Dead Silence.
- Attention to Media - 6/7 - On Sunday we had some storm chase in the background; Monday more storm chase and then some book reviews; Tuesday we caught up on Abbott Elementary; Thursday and Friday had some explore and paranormal videos in the background; Saturday we watched a paranormal video and then Frankenstein.
- Video Games - 0/7
- Social Interaction - 2/7
Total words written: 0
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I held off on making this post until today, as it’s my last day of annual leave, so the last day of my dedicated writing time. Writing has been going well, I’ve now written as many words as I had by the end of the year last year so I’m officially caught up. As I started November 6000 words ahead of where I was last year, I’m hoping to maintain that, ideally I’d like to be able to say I wrote 10,000 more words this year than last but we’ll call that a stretch goal! (The return of my fic writing ability/motivation means that I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to spend December writing a bunch of treats and pinch hits, thereby getting a decent word count for the final month.) An interesting thing about this year’s writing is that it hasn’t consumed everything else. For a start, I’ve finished the non-fiction book I was reading this month, and I’ve started another. My other personal target for this month was that I wanted to finish the little crochet crab that I’m making. It’s the first proper amigurumi that I’ve tackled so getting it successfully finished will tick a bunch of boxes. It goes in fits and starts because I keep having to take it to my knitting group to get help. (Being a very beginner crocheter and working between UK and US instructions can be complicated - I was taught by someone who uses US terms, one of the ladies at knitting uses UK terms and the other is Dutch!) So I have finished the body and a leg, and I’ve made half a claw but now I’m stuck until I can get to knitting and have someone show me what’s meant by ‘turn’ in this context. I have, however, found a good video for doing magic circle so hopefully by the time I finish the legs - there’s eight - I’ll have that down pat. I’m travelling for work this week, so I’m hoping to get the rest of the legs and both eyes done while I’m away. That way I can ask about both the claw and the eyestalks while I’m there and get both sorted out. It’s fun looking at the progress that I’ve made on it, I’m quite pleased with the stitch texture I’m getting now, and I’m pleased to have mastered decreasing but already I can see where I’ve improved and got better. Like, I’m having moments of realising ‘oh that’s why keeping the stitch count right was so hard’ and ‘oh that was silly, of course I should do it this way instead’. (I did, as predicted end up breaking the flismy little plastic hook that came with the kit - my tension is tight! - but actually now that I’ve dug out a metal hook of the correct size I feel that I’m getting on better, I don’t know if it’s just that I was worrying about snapping the old one, or if it’s actually easier with a hook of a different material.) I’ve been zooming through my podcast backlog while I’ve been working on the crab, which has also been quite satisfying. At the start of last week I kind of felt that I wasn’t making much progress on many things I wanted to have done this week, but looking back on it, I think I’ve done everything I needed to do. There's definitely more things I wanted/intended to do but the time critical stuff - things that needed ordered and bought by deadline, stuff that was expiring both food and digital stuff have been dealt with - has been done, I've added a bunch of lights to places in the unending fight against the lack of light. I got some more cute decorative lights, fairy lights and a snow globe style one. Also while i was tidying out other things, I found some stick on press lights that my dad gave me ages ago and had no idea what I'd do with them, and it dawn on me they'd be ideal for the meter cupboard so now the cupboard with the fuse box and the electric meter and the cupboard where the gas meter lives have little press lights so I don't have to juggle my phone's flashlight when I'm trying to send my meter readings. I didn’t get my curtains dry cleaned in the end because when I took them in to the dry cleaners, they were like ‘oh no’ because they’re both thermal lined and from Dunelm and apparently they’ve had a run of those where there’s something wrong with the thermal lining, so they stick together in the machine and the lining shreds when you try to separate them again. (Sometimes they’re fine, but they’re not often that they’ve got a special report and letter they give people to get their money back/replacement curtains from Dunelm.) The dry cleaning lady recommended - as mine were dusty rather than actually grubby, I vacuumed them when I took them down - hanging the outside on a nice dry breezy day and giving them a febreeze! I even got my good sewing shears sharpened - now if I could just find my chalk I could get to work on shortening those curtains. Though I do now have...concerns about ironing the new seams... | |
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While our weather is (maybe, probably) about to take a turn, we have been granted one of the longest, warmest falls I have ever experienced! (Last week we reached our record for latest snowfall in Denver, and we're still waiting...) I'm certainly not complaining (yes, yes, I know that we need the snow to fend off the fires and all, but were there no consequences I would be happy to literally never see snow again.) The day got a little late on us, but once we finally got it together, we wanted to go do something to take advantage of the nice weather. We decided on Red Rocks. It's most famous as an enormous outdoor amphitheater used for concerts and such, but does have some hiking trails. Indeed, the several times we hoped to go there earlier this year, there were concerts planned, which limits the hours that you can be in the park for anything else. But that day, finally! We headed up to a trail we remembered doing before, but not for a few years. Oof. I remembered the trail, but not how uphill it was. I got wimpy near the end of it and had to stop for a few, which felt really silly when it was less than five minutes from the end. I can go pretty infinitely on flat ground or downhill, but man, the instant there's an incline, I want to die. Still, I recovered, and it's worth the hike.  The red rocks! A nice stretch of the hogback.  Bella got to climb some rocks!
Ten more pictures:
There's a little path to an overlook before the trail itself.
Bella was quite happy that there was this little "raised sidewalk" built specifically for her. (And there's the amphitheater in the background.)
You can see pretty far. Not gonna lie, kinda miss when all those houses weren't there, though.
On the actual trail, a nicely dramatic striped rock.
A deer!
Bella was excited to see the deer.
The deer was not terribly impressed, lol.
I like how stark the aspens are against the rocks. :)
Sometime after this was when I had to sit down for a bit, though after slamming some liquids and catching my breath I was all right.
Up toward the top of the trail is a big, flat stretch of rock which made a good spot for a slightly longer break. It also provides a great spot for Bella to do her favorite thing: rock climbing.
Bella really does seem to love getting to climb. She's excited to roam around the instant she has a chance to.
I really liked this picture of Bella, because the sun made it look like *she* was glowing. Unfortunately, my camera also picked up weird blur on her legs, which make them look super weird, ha.
Looking at the shadow of the rocks there made me think "We have Arches [National Park] at home." Alex called it "Temu Arches," lol.
Cool twisty juniper tree.
I'm glad we had another nice day, and that it synced up with a day that the park was open for hiking. :) | |
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I didn't sign up for this round of Seasons of Drabbles, but I had a lovely time browsing the collection yesterday afternoon. Here's a few that I liked (all authors are still anonymous!): Listening for Something, Alien Movies, Jones the Cat & Ripley, triple drabble, super cute Jonesy POV! Only One Boot, Discworld, Angua & Cheery, double drabble, Angua and Cheery working together on a snippet of a case - very cute and I appreciate the puns after the game, Elementary, Joan & Sherlock, single drabble, great character voices and delightful banter Challenge Accepted, Hawkeye (TV), Yelena/Kate, triple drabble, hot, flirty, stubbornly competitive sparring and target practice an uninvited visitor, Hawkeye (TV), Yelena & Kate, triple drabble, Yelena demands Kate take her sightseeing - really funny dialogue! Rumor Has It, Nimona (2023), Ambrosius/Ballister, single drabble, post-canon Ambrosius peruses a magazine article on the "secrets of Gloreth's Champion" - fun flirty banter in this one! A Mutually Beneficial Arrangement, Star Trek Voyager, B'Elanna/Seven of Nine, drabble sequence, cute and funny fake relationship plot, with some great beats and excellent character voices Compass, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Leia & Luke, triple drabble, tender moment of acknowledging grief and anger post-The Empire Strikes Back - I like this way of surfacing Leia's force sensitivity From the Desk of a North American Conservationist, Original Work, Vampire who Rescues Bats & Friendly Monster, triple drabble, an epistolary delight! Super charming voice for the letter-writer, and fun glimpses into chaotic slice of life occurrences Is it monsterfucking if the tail is out?, Original Work, Male Vampire/Male Werewolf, single drabble, so cute and funny! A vampire accidentally ends up in bed with a very adorable werewolf Two Conversations at a Cash Register, Original Work, Owner of a Magical Bookstore & Sentient Magical Book, triple drabble, such a charming premise! love the bright and fun narrative voice | |
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Free Bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd) has now joined Breakfast In America (Supertramp) in the storied annals of: *actually pays attention to the lyrics for the first time* this song's about WHAT?
"Lanna, what did you think Free Bird was about?"
IDK, SOMEONE WHO LIKES TRAVELING!
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12 icons of Jay Hernandez as characters in uniform. 1-5 Magnum PI 6-9 Max (2015) 10 Takers (2010), 11 Lakeview Terrace (2008), 12 Bright (2017) Teasers:    ( Read more... ) | |
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A fun video digging into the etymology of words we use for time like hour, why it's called a clock, and lost words like overmorrow. | |
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Kind of a catch-all post!
Alex had an MRI last week. This was to try and find out exactly what's going on in his neck, causing a lot of pain and occasional numbness. The results came in quite quickly. Basically they all validate "yup, this shit is fucked." I think that's the official medical terminology. Pretty much every individual vertebra has problems of some kind, though some are only "mild," though most are "moderate" with a few "severe." Pretty much what Alex was expecting, but it is a bit vindicating to have the thing that says "yes, medically, this stuff is just so fucked up."
Greenbean II (one of the katydids) passed away yesterday. She made it quite a bit longer than either of our katydids from last year did, and longer than Three. She also left behind many eggs, so we'll see if we can get another generation.
Clickbait is still going pretty strong. I'm impressed! Fingers crossed that he keeps wanting to eat his beans and make noise at every crinkling package in the kitchen.
I am still struggling post time-change. I don't know why I've had such a bad time adjusting this year! I'm still getting tired an hour "early" at night. This mostly gets frustrating because the end of the night is when I try to get my reading done, and so currently I've been reading more slowly than I was, because I fall asleep instead. Getting off of work after it's already been dark for an hour+ also sucks.
I did start kind of looking at my TBR list for next year (and the rest of this year). I've got nine books that I'd really like to finish by the end of the year, though we'll see if I can manage it.
For next year, my initial tentative goal is to read 50 books. I've managed more than that this year, and it'd be great if I could do it again!
More specifically, my goal is to get through some of the “classics” that I feel I *should* have read, and then put off reading out of misplaced guilt over not having read them yet, because anxiety is stupid: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Ursula K Le Guin, and Terry Pratchett. The Hobbit/LotR is technically a reread, but I barely remember my first read through and I didn't enjoy it. For UKLG I planned to start with the Earthsea stories, and for PTerry I planned to start with the Watch books.
I also want to read the queer-themed ebooks from the charity bundle I purchased.
I also want to read the Up and Under novellas.
I also want to reread the Murderbot Diaries in preparation for the new one that comes out in May.
Then I actually did the math on that list: 4 Tolkien + 7 Earthsea + 8 Watch + 14 queer ebooks + 4 Up and Under + 8 Murderbot (including the new one) + 4 new releases for ongoing series that will be coming out next year = 49 books. So. Only one other TBR book for the whole year, if I'm aiming for 50??? (Not even taking into account any books I read with Alex or Taylor, or any of my "brain candy" side reads.)
Oof. Gotta realign some of those expectations.
Currently my plan is to prioritize LotR and the Murderbot reread. For the queer ebooks, the UKLG books, and the Terry Pratchett books I will make sure they're in a regular rotation of the TBR list, but I'm not going to worry about whether I get through all of those within the course of the year. Time is fake; as much as I like having a nice even spot (like the new year) to wrap something up and start something new, it's not illegal for me to carry my same goals forward into 2027.
Assuming we're all still here and not in a smoking crater, ha. | |
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Have determined that the ren faire shop put me in the wrong size corset. Either that or their pattern is wildly bad for my body shape. It's an underbust so I was avoiding the worst of my fit issues. They only had the one length, so I knew to expect that it'd hit my thighs when sitting. (I am absurdly short-waisted.)
In an attempt to tighten the bottom enough to not be able to fit my closed fist longways on either side of hip while also having room for my closed fist shortways in front of my lower stomach, I have tightened the damn corset enough that the bottom two (of six) pairs of lacing are touching. Also despite having balcony seating for a family of four there is also significant gaping around the top of this thing. I have an inch maybe two of reduction around my middle.
This is comically ill-fitted at this point. I was wearing two thin linen dresses and a pair of linen pants I only wear under longer things when I got fitted. I thought the fit issues I had at faire were because the damn thing was too long.
I guess I'll take pictures and reach out to see how to return it. I might be able to get out to faire again before end of season, but I also might not. | |
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So yea these many years ago I bought and more or less rehabbed an antique treadle sewing machine. Her name is Alice. Alice has gone to live with an appreciative coworker, because I am moving at least once and hopefully twice in the next couple years and there is a limited number of times that I am willing to move (probably) 80+ pounds of mostly cast iron which I don't actually use to sew with. I got her in large part for the joy of taking her apart and putting her back together and having the experience of using a treadle machine, but she's not practical for everyday sewing for me. Various combinations of me and a friend and the said coworker successfully got Alice out of my apartment, down a flight of stairs, into my CR-V, out of the CR-V again, and into the coworker's smaller hatchback without any bloodshed at all. We were all justifiably smug about this. And then the coworker was forced to perform evasive maneuvers on the way home so as not to be rear-ended by a dumbass. Coworker is fine. Alice is also fine, of course. Alice is mostly cast iron and will unquestionably survive us all. Unfortunately, Alice broke loose in the back of the car and smashed the absolute shit out of the rear windshield. Coworker has already gotten the windshield replaced and doesn't appear to be experiencing any financial hardship, fortunately. She immediately came to tell me about it at work today, with pictures, because she thought I would think it was funny. | |
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I've not been making a lot of progress lately, so this update is both late and not very exciting.
Goal Updates I got a little bit more done on my outline. That's about it
September Stats - 2 books read
- I finished 6 movies and 1 TV show (Blindspot; it was a great ending!)
- Writing has been pretty stagnant
- I spent a total of 40 minutes drafting 360 words (~9 wpm)
- I've started working on the handmade Christmas gifts I'm doing this year
- I spent 1h 30m on crochet
- I spent 57 mins on Tunisian crochet slippers
- I spent 10h 10m minutes tatting ornaments
- Baked 4 things
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On Tuesday night, the aurora borealis was visible through a huge amount of the country, including Colorado! The first time I ever got to see them was last year, and while we've tried to see them a couple times since, the later attempts tended to capture a faint glow at best. The ones on Tuesday were amazing.  The colors were most intense early. (This is brighter than it appeared to the naked eye, but the color was visible even without a camera, both the reds and the greens. It was so cool!) We went up north and east to try and get away from the city lights, which was very worthwhile, though it was visible even from within the city. I even caught an extremely weak pinkish glow from my apartment window. Taylor got a better picture of them from behind their house.  There was this little flare of brighter green that would appear and disappear from the lower right.
Seven more pictures of the auroras:
I did really like how many stars were also visible.
This was looking directly upwards at the stars. So many stars (milky way, again!), and even directly upwards was faintly pink.
Eventually the redder tones started to fade a bit, but then the green got a bit more vibrant, which was also very cool.
We were parked out on a little rural dirt road. It is a county road, but eventually someone came over to the car to "check if we were okay" since we were on "his" road. It's not a private road, but we don't want to freak anyone out, either. We told him we were just looking at the auroras, which he seemed surprised by. They were fading a bit by then, so we decided to head back home.
As we left the highway back in the metro area, we saw that the color was back in the sky! While we were back within the city, it was still very visible. We pulled over near a neighborhood park to take another look.
This is not with a long/"night mode" exposure; the night mode washed it out, while this is actually relatively close to (though a little brighter than) what it looked like even without my camera.
It was kind of nice that the peak visibility for the auroras hit really early. We had time to get out and see some really spectacular views of them, but also got to come home by about 10:30, ha. And the forecast was that they were supposed to be even stronger on Wednesday night!
While we were delighted that we'd gotten to see them on Tuesday, we made plans to head out and try to see them again on Wednesday, leaving right from my office when I got off of work. ...And it was cloudy. So I'm extra glad we took full advantage on Tuesday, rather than waiting and betting on the "even stronger" forecast. There were some nice lights on Wednesday, if you could get away from the cloud cover, though I don't think they ever hit quite as strong as the ones from Tuesday. We tried for several hours to get to a good spot, but just never quite managed it. We were stuck behind the clouds, even when we pushed about as far east as we could justify trying to go. Once the clouds did finally start to break up and it got nice and clear... the lights were about done. We got a very faint glow, but hardly worth writing home about, especially compared to the night before! Though once it did clear up, there were some really nice stars:  So many stars! Cassiopeia in the upper left. (I am not good at very many constellations, but I recognize a handful.)  And Orion! I'm not sorry that we tried on Wednesday, and we had a nice time anyway (got some snacks, waited and stargazed, read some book), I had emphatically not wanted it to be an hours-and-hours-long excursion... but as we kept pushing farther east, and then waiting for it to clear, and then of course having to get back home, it turned into a 6+ hour journey. We left straight from work after I got off at 6, and then didn't make it home until after midnight, sobcry. | |
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- -the book does not take place in a specific year but it takes place on specific days of the week corresponding to days of the month: November 15th is explicitly a Saturday.
The book was published in 1978. November 15th was not a Saturday in 1978. In previous fics, I've just set it in 1978 anyway, because who cares. And I did that here but it's bothering me that, especially when I need to reference things on a specific date, the day/week doesn't match up.
So I opened Excel to find what year(s) in the 1970s had a date/weekday correspondance. And it's only 1975.
The moon phases don't match up to 1975 but the moon phases are not something that is going to bother me; me specifically having the start of the game happen in the middle of the week instead of Sunday, that bothers me.
And still I dithered because I'd made myself a reference table with the heirs's birth years based on their ages in canon and then how old they'd be in 2007, when the fic is set, and I'd used that throughout the fic, and if I changed it to 1975, I'd have to change all of that. aldkfa;ldkfja;lkdjsfalks
But I'm going to do it anyway, and not only because I was like "okay wait, when you change everything and actually save the excel file this time instead of just copying the table with | into scrivener, make sure you have Crow's birthyear right because her birthday is Nov 15, so her age given in her bio will not be the year she turns during canon" and it turns out I'd had it wrong in the reference table anyway.
So now I need to change every single year that is mentioned at any point in the fic but at least it won't bother me anymore, the day of the week problems.
- THEY UPDATED THE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK
All right. So. Rosalie, Flora Baumbach's daughter. She is referred to as a "Mongoloid" child in the book. She is referred to as that in both physical copies of the book I have.
But also I got the ebook out from the library to have on my phone too while doing this because why the hell not, and! it turns out! that the line that was originally "She had a retarded daughter, Rosalie, a Mongoloid child", now it just says "She had a disabled child, Rosalie"! (I give them only half a point in cutting "retarded" since they keep "retarded" in the discussion between Theo and Mrs. Baumbach about Chris)
Now, yes, I am fine with them removing both those terms BUT BUT BUT now since they just went with "disabled", now you have to rely on context clues and physical description of Rosalie to know that she had Down's!
It's an incredibly minor characterization detail, but I think it's a VERY IMPORTANT minor characterization detail in how Mrs. Baumbach relates to 1) Chris, and 2) Turtle, that Rosalie had Down's. And now it's "idek, figure it out from the clues we'll pepper in". JUST SAY SHE HAD DOWN'S SYNDROME. IT'S IMPORTANT.
- And great, from a canon review/consistency stage, now I have to worry what else was changed in the book. (I haven't spotted any other changes but I did spot a typo: Sam Westing is called "Sara Westing" at one point. THAT WOULD BE A VERY DIFFERENT BOOK. DON'T GET ME WRONG, I WOULD READ THAT BOOK. BUT THAT IS NOT THIS BOOK.)
- It was not until this day (or, uh, yesterday? Two days ago? Some point in recent history) that I realized that... maybe Flora Baumbach is Jewish? Jake Wexler is textually. But... was I supposed to get the impression that Flora Baumbauch, nee Miller, is Jewish? Because the character never did that for me at any point at any time in the decades I have been rereading this book, but some of her various backstory details... uh, is she Jewish and I just never noticed?
- Also Denton Deere seems to have massively changed medical specialties during the book but you know what, that's unimportant.
- I appreciate that the book tells me that Turtle did not change her name upon marriage. I had to make an executive decision that Alice is just Deere, she is not hyphenated, even though she'd be in peak generational and peak socio-economical to be Wexler-Deere. But I made it just Deere for narrative reasons.
Why do I keep stumbling into fandoms where I have to make decisions about the last name of canonical children of the characters. Why.
Also I had to decide if Angela changed her name but at least that's not a load-bearing decision. She's an orthopedic surgeon. She's probably Dr. Wexler at work! But did she otherwise change it? Did she hyphenate? There's a good chance she hyphenated.
Dr. Deere is her husband, Dr. Wexler is her father... Angela, what did you do. (I have it as Dr. Deere right now and will likely keep it that way, on the theory that Grace pushed her hard to change her name and Angela went along with it.)
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