be brave, my sage little toaster!

( books: Osman, Vance, Osman )

yarning yay
I went to yarn group on Sunday and there was such good turnout, even though several people couldn't make it. It was really nice. I learned that one of my kickbunny customers has a puzzle game where her cat pushes a button to request certain toys, and she requests her kickbunny ALL the time! So heartwarming! She also sent a pic of the cat lying with her head on the bunny. Too sweet! I also gave five hats and a scarf to a yarn group member who volunteers at BoysTown/Boysville (a shelter for kids--with residential family situations, not dormitories). The yarning will go straight to the kids, not their thrift shop, so that's doubly wonderful. Also, I found a missing safety eye that I'd searched high and low for. Not high enough, apparently, as it was ON my workbench, not on the floor despite having clearly heard it bounce!

yarning boo
The reversible doll pattern I was using to make niece's xmas gift has a major flaw in the pattern & I'm really pissed off about it. I could wing it and make it work, or else I could just frog it and make something else for her entirely. Undecided.

( yarning Lestat )

healthcrap
still under the weather. More nausea. I quit coffee, because it was a direct nausea trigger, and it is so weird to be caffeine-free; it's torn up my whole morning routine. As far as the insomnia, I was going to sleep around midnight (boo!) and waking for hours in the madrugada (double boo!), only to sleep til ten once I finally drifted off. Then the clock change knocked me back onto schedule, I hope. The morning nausea continues, though. And today I felt so rotten I actually napped for ninety minutes. Weird.

( rl gah )

mercury retrograde
starts this Friday Sunday in Sagittarius, then moves into Scorpio in about ten days, IIRC. At least this year it ends before the Yuletide deadline instead of being dead on it & crashing the AO3 servers. Fun times. Mars is also in Sagittarius, as of yesterday, so our tendency to behave like the arrow (not the archer, the *arrow*) zooming through spacetime is super heightened. Try to pace yourself & refrain from jumping to conclusions.

I hope all of y'all are doing well! <333

I typed this up Friday and early Saturday, before Trump bombed Iran:

( astrology geekery )

...

I hate being right about bad things. :(

books
Prince Lestat by Anne Rice. Kind of all over the place, much like Lestat.

reading: Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis by Anne Rice. Lestat loves being called a slut, because of course he does. :D Beyond that, surprisingly tightly plotted...so far.

still reading: A Noble Ruin by W. Jeffrey Tatum. We're finally at Actium.

Interview with the Vampire Rewatch
1.4. This week I learned that S1 & S2 were meant to be one long season but were disrupted by Covid. 1.4 makes me fall in love with Bailey Bass all over again. She is everything. Also, I noticed that the scenes of Claudia's making were from the Diaries' POV, not Louis', who was asleep while Daniel was reading them. That calls into question Lestat's account of her making in S2.

Batman: Caped Crusader
VERY interesting changes to the 'verse! I've only seen a few eps, but I like what I've seen so far. I miss Kevin Conroy's voice, though I love the Dinn and Brubaker elements a lot.

Wayne Family Adventures webcomic
Last week gave the best Barbara Gordon I've seen in recent memory. Worth catching up if you've let it slide. Note: the link goes to the beginning. The CURRENT season is full of long, plotty episodes, unlike the first two seasons, which were mainly one shots.

yarning
I just got in a massive order of yarn. With luck I won't have to go buy any more for quite some time. I also restocked on stockings and tissue paper and got some enormous ziploc bags for storing kickbunnies before they sell. I previously only had two large ziplocs but now I have a good supply and can store cat toys without fear of the catnip going stale. I hate using plastic but I need something huge and airtight.

So far this week I've made several catnip-sunflower sunflowers in an array of colors (including a Halloween one), two extra-long under-the-door toys, and a wine and gray kickbunny that looks awesome. Everything's up in my shop now, too. Yay! Annnnd this week I've made two adorable bumpy pumpkins, soon to be in the shop, and I'm trying to figure out how to do silvervine mistletoe. And someone has asked me to make a crocheted dreidel or two, depending on if I can get it to spin. (The pattern says it will.) Hanukah is late this year, starting on 12/26, so I have some time to work that out.

life
Mercury Retrograde ended yesterday, yay. It was scorching hot all last week but it's due to rain here this week and be in the mid 90s instead of low 100s. Blessed cold front!

healthcrap
phone visit with endocrinology yesterday. Everything is on track, yay!

I hope all of you are doing well! <333

elections
My local election returns are a lovely shade of blue, and I'm pretty impressed by the super-narrow margins by which the GOP assholes held their lead. I suspect those wins are largely due to egregious gerrymandering and gross lack of DNC advertising funding & GOTV efforts in non-urban Texas, so it's more of a victory than it looks like.

I was reading about postcard brigade efforts the other day and am hopeful it will catch on as a means of sidestepping the next two years of inevitable Congressional gridlock.

books
Good And Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister. So incredibly validating and inspiring. I am so glad I had this to read and hug like a teddy bear over the last few weeks leading up to the election. There is an amazing part at the end where she lists examples of women who ran for office and lost, but inspired another woman who made history; who tried to get a landmark bill passed and failed, but inspired other women to do XY&Z; who ran for president and lost, but inspired the largest number of women to run for public office in the history of the US. Inspiration grows and grows and grows and becomes a sea change. *holds onto that*

yarning
At last I have finished the matching red slipper to the one I did 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately they've already stretched out enough that I need to take out and remake the last few rounds. This will be zippy if fiddly work.

I ALSO picked up my great pacific octopus pattern where last I left off and hit a mysterious giant lacuna in the middle between the mantle and the arms. There is a flare. I remember figuring out the flare, but where are my notes? Notes! I need notes! *facepalm*

dirt ( dirt log )

neighbors
I had a screed here about the really excessive noise of the new people who just moved in two doors down, but now I'm hoping it was only limited to the actual moving-in period and was more the guys helping them move rather than permanent insane loudness? *crosses everything* In other news, it appears this year that people here are skipping straight from Halloween to Christmas decorations. I am side-eyeing all of it. Harvest decor is important. Yule is still a full six weeks and 2 days away.

healthcrap
One of my pain meds is back-ordered nationally with no expected supply date. They've subbed another temporarily. I had my first dose last night and oh god the hangover. This is AWFUL. I'm going to give it some more time in case it's a side effect that will pass, but jeebus. I want my old meds back.

astrology
I'm thinking about creating an astrology tumblr. Today is actual seasonal Samhain--the midpoint of Autumn, the halfway point between Equinox and Solstice. I've written up a forecast for the period from now until Yule...I'm just stumbling over the name for the tumblr, really. Any suggestions? I'd rather not use "Sage" because reasons, but branding is hard.

dirt ( indoor, outdoor )

healthcrap
Tomorrow I get more injections, yay! PT, ottoman, and building hip muscle are helping my feet. Not eating or speaking is helping my jaw -- which is not tenable, obvsly, ergo the excitement over more injections.

solstice ( astrology )