Happy birthday, girlyswot!

Found the scilla; it's under the pine tree, like right under it, in a little huddle of dark blue bells. V cute.

It's a bit warm and only flirting with freezing next Sunday and Monday nights, so I kicked out the two least fragile plants (agapanthus and some kind of dracaena, I forget but it's definitely survived being snowed on before) plus the two biggest geraniums and lo, there is space again.

So then Marci was like why don't you move the dahlias there, and I was all, oh and put them on a tray so they could be carried in and out to harden off ahead off frost free?? I love it. But the schefflera trees by the back door have scale, which doesn't kill them but could do in tender dahlia babies, so I pushed the littler trees outside too even though I'm pretty sure they're the ones I accused of being overly dramatic about temps below 50F last fall. We'll see in the morning, because even though I ordered them their own mini greenhouse for tomorrow I didn't bring them back in tonight.

And Marci was like what if you got a popup canopy, would that keep things warm, and I was like I don't know but I could put the big tree in it and attack the scale with mint while also keeping the dahlias away from it. But I don't want to move the big tree out until I put the fake grass on the patio for the summer, and that means moving everything already on the patio, plus sweeping, and also hauling rolls of artificial turf from the garage. Sounds hard.

So maybe that will be tomorrow's project, or not. Meanwhile there's a big empty space near the back door with a dahlia table built out of partially assembled wire crates and a boot tray. The dahlias are still in the utility closet.

But the lungwort is blooming in the front garden next to the bridge and its little pink and purple flowers are delightful.

For some reason, I felt moved to write femslash pirate dubcon smut. Not sure where that came from.

Title: And a Bottle of Rum
Rating: R
Word Count: 1536

Summary: Seriously, guys, this is just smut.

( yo ho ho )

 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday April 15, to midnight on Thursday, April 16. (8pm Eastern Time).




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 

I got the date wrong on an appointment. I knew I had something on the 22nd, as well as the adjacent week, but I'd forgotten it was the week of the 29th, not today. I understand how I made that mistake and I'm not sure what to do to keep it from happening again, other than writing it down in a dedicated weekly planner instead of on a post-it note.

But, I ran a couple errands I'd wanted to get done. I found that swings got installed at Lincoln Center for the summer and rode one for a few minutes, and now I know they're around for another sunny day sometime soon. I was able to visit a grocery store near where my appointment would've been held and got a few things there on discount - a couple dollars less than the prices at my usual store, and while the leftover dollars went to fancy coconut water, it about balanced out. Walking downtown, someone I met at a party recognized me from the street and called out my name and we had a nice little chat. I took the time I would've spent at the appointment, went home, and got some good writing done ahead of going out tonight.

So all in all, I'm not upset about how things went today.

This one goes out to loons and Shane Hollander and those middle-of-the-night moments of clarity.

( The Loon )

1) My partner injured yet another finger playing baseball last weekend and had to go to the emergency room. Luckily it was not broken, just dislocated. Since then we have gotten 3 phone calls from the hospital group asking for a survey response.

This is particularly irritating because this group has been buying up hospitals, clinics and medical practices in the area, and is currently the only emergency room in town and provider of certain services.

So what is the point of the survey? What choice to we have? How will any response actually do anything to improve care?

2) I've been warming to High Potential, and recently Keith Carradine guest starred. I knew I recognized him as soon as he appeared, but I couldn't place him. Instead I kept wondering why he made me think of Joel Kinnaman in For All Mankind. For sure they could play relatives.

3) I have not been reading any fic for the better part of a year now. Some months back I read about 4 or 5 that had probably been downloaded over a year earlier, but I haven't been doing offline reading for the first time in a very long time. And when it happened before it was because I didn't have access to material, whereas now I have dozens of commercial books and even more fic.

(I say "nothing" though this doesn't count the random drabble or ficlet someone recs.) ( Read more... )

4) The thing that really stood out to me about Amazon announcing they're discontinuing service to 2012 and earlier Kindles was to think that there's not many electronics that are still running after 15 years. ( Read more... )

5) The Pillowfort Anniversary festivities have ended and it was fun. Many (not even all!) of the activities could be summed up with the bingo card. ( Read more... )

I'd love to see someone else take this on in a few years' time.

( Read more... )

Reading: Still These Old Shades. Not to rehash last week's discussion. It is fun enough, especially later on, but it has bought into the idea that Nobility Will Out and its heroine also seems somewhat naive given her age and background.

Listening: A lot more of 13 Minutes on the Artemis mission, interspersed with various podcats of Doctor Who fans watching no longer missing episodes.

Watching: We managed to get to the end of an old series of Taskmaster before the Sparrow left, this being what we mostly watch when she is around. And missing Doctor Who episodes, of course.

I got out to one of our local trails late last week.

This one is an old state park that has been partially developed. It's a fun but small trail that has a variety of habitats for wildlife.





It goes around this drainage pond, which attracts many birds and waterfowl.





Then it passes the condo development, eventually leading to a bike path along the bay.
You can see one of the condos on the right.

Core rules and supplements for the Liberi Gothica Games tabletop fantasy roleplaying game of heroism against world-shattering odds, Fellowship.

Bundle of Holding: Fellowship (from 2020)

Write Every Day April 2026 - Day 15

This is my last day hosting for this month! Tomorrow, head over to sanguinity's place. See you there!

Quote of the Day:

"Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic."

— Jim Jarmusch, quoted in Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist.


My Check-In:

Alibi sentence! Because, er, I was lazy! ;-)


Tally
( Days 1-13 )

Day 14: badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, dswdiane, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora

Day 15: china_shop


Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

College dropout and aspiring writer, Margo (Elle Fanning), is the daughter of an ex-Hooter’s waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) and ex-pro wrestler (Nick Offerman). After an affair with her junior college English professor leaves her pregnant, Margo turns to OnlyFans to support herself. Reconnecting with her estranged father, who shares wisdom gleaned from his wrestling, Margo achieves remarkable success. This David E. Kelley series also stars Marcia Gay Harden, Greg Kinnear, Michael Angarano, Rico Nasty, and Lindsey Normington.

Now on Apple TV.

I think that this short book review (and likely the whole book it describes) may appeal not only to devoted fans of Stephen King, and to literary nerds like me, but to all of us who like to think about how reading and writing work:

"Monsters in the Archives by Caroline Bicks review – The writing secrets of Stephen King: A deep dive into the horror novelist’s archives reveals pedantry, penny-pinching, and a total redraft of Carrie"
by Kathryn Hughes; The Guardian (US); Mon 30 Mar 2026 02.00 EDT

Excerpt: "In the same manuscript, Bicks also finds the novelist resisting the copy editor’s attempts to replace the word “rattly,” which King has used to describe the labored breathing of the novel’s dying two-year-old protagonist, Gage Creed. The copy editor suggests “congested” would be better. But King knows that rattly contains within itself a whole ghastly set of subliminal associations including scavenging vermin and unquiet ghosts with their infernal chains. Congested is something a coroner would write."

(TIL that The Guardian (US) has a "book of the day" feature.)