IDK. I did go outside, checked the chickens food (bother, just realised I didn't check their water).
Temps are supposed to be 30+ today and the next few days, alas, before cooling down on Christmas Day. By which we mean "mid-20s".
CRIPES. It's a week to Christmas.
My mother wants us to go over on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day. *sigh* I just don't want to do "Christmas Day", and then "Christmas Day But With The Stepbro's Family".
I don't seem to have gotten COVID - still testing clear, just feeling generally tired.
--
It's six hours later and it's crazy hot out there.
Y'all. Go read the reviews; these things are apparently total game-changers. Easy to fill, clean, no more leaking piping bags, AND they fit all the Wilton metal tips we already have! I don't do much cake decorating these days, but I dopipe caulking for crafts, so I'm excited to try these out.
Time and circumstance conspired to keep me from reviewing the second book in the Cemeteries of Amalo book, The Grief of Stones, but today I finished the third book, Tomb of the Dragonsand I do have time to review this third and final book in the trilogy.
This is NOT a spoiler-free review.
Tomb of the Dragons retains much of what I loved about the first two books, including Thara’s character and his investigations into the underbelly of Amalo, with a healthy helping of Ethuveraz politics.
Thara is having to adjust to the events at the end of the last book, and here, I feel, is where we truly see how important his calling is to him—how he handles losing it. It gives some good perspective to why he is so dogged in pursuing his work goals—his calling really is his sense of purpose, his life. Watching Thara grapple with this change and its indefinite consequences was fascinating.
However, it also retains in greater measure some of the things that I didn’t love about the earlier books, including Addison’s obsession with minutiae. I can only read about the characters traveling on this or that tram line so many times before my eyes start skipping lines to the things that really matter. This would bother me less if it didn’t feel like it came at the expense of more important things.
[WARNING: Those blessed/cursed with a dirty mind are going to find this post hee-LARIOUS - but should probably clear the room of innocents first. Remember, Santa is watching, kids.]
There's just something about this time of year, am I right? Crackling fires in every fireplace, romantic twinkly lights in all the trees, and of course, skin-tight Santa suits. Yep. This, my friends, is the season... OF LURRRVE.
And a good thing, too. After all, it makes us more giving:
(Step 1: Cut a hole in the box.)
More attentive:
"Yes, deer."
And even when we're feeling a bit knotty:
[insert 'morning wood' joke here]
... we know this is the time when its better to bury the hatchet, not leave.
Yes, it's the season for dropping the underpants of our emotional reticence, and letting the ding-a-ling of our love shine out.
(Oh, it's happy, all right.)
I guess what I'm trying to say here, my friends, is that Rudolph has a giant wang on his face:
And you've just gotta love that.
Thanks to Sarah L., Nick, Bridget F., Luke, & C for taking a firm upper hand with these rascally wrecks.
******
P.S. Speaking of things that are dirty, I have to introduce you to the handiest little kitchen gadget for under $8:
The whole thing is magnetic, and it also comes with a double-sided adhesive for non-metallic machines. Also comes in black, and there's a prettier cursive option if you don't like the bright red/green!
Work is gonna be slightly stressful the next three weeks. Apart from managing two systems until mid-January (and three for the 10 days after Christmas), they've instigated KPIs on basic tickets, and at least two of mine went overtime, in part because I was waiting for someone to get back to me. *grr*
I hate waiting for people to get back to me.
--
The shooting at Bondi Beach - a public Channukah event was targeted, one of the shooters was non-white, one of the members of the public who disarmed him (and was shot twice but survived) was middle eastern. Reports debate whether he was a Christian or a Muslim: the name suggests Muslim, his country background suggests Christian. Of course the cookers are already calling for a halt to immigration and trying to start up the culture wars again, the conservatives are yelling at our PM (centrist party), and the "anti-semitism adjudicator" has once again used this to basically declare that if you're not 100% for Israel in everything then you're antisemitic.
a few thoughts
It shouldn't need saying but we say it all the same.
Was the shooting at Bondi antisemitic? Absolutely.
Is disavowing Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza in the removal of/bombing of/cruelty towards Palestinian locals antisemitic? Not even close.
I'm hoping Ahmed el Ahmed is Muslim, at the very least for the optics. Nevertheless, whatever his background, he's definitely a hero to the majority of Australians, and I suspect the fruit shop he runs will be well-frequented in the coming months and he will never need to pay for a meal while out for the rest of the summer.
Whatever faith or origins are revealed of any of the players, this was an awful day for all Australians who aren't cookers (Americans would call them RWNJs). Fear breeds distrust, and events like this breed both copycats and retaliation, and tear at the fragile fabric of our communities and our societies.
And the gun control argument is going to be so fucking stupid, too. The 2A Seppos are all in our faces jeering about us having gun violence, too, and the old "good guy with a gun" shit is coming out of the woodwork - never mind how many people are pointing out that the guy who did successfully disarm one of the gunmen wasn't armed. And the cookers just want violence to justify their itty bitty penii and their terrible self-esteem (cause they can't get jobs when the coloureds take the opportunities)...
God have mercy on us. All of us.
--
A friend tested positive for COVID after we had dinner together (with some other friends) on Saturday night. She thinks she got it at her work Christmas Party on Thursday.
--
I'm standing for the presidency of my permaculture club again, with an eye to changing the way things are done - they're not working for us as a volunteer-based organisation anymore.
Of course, the COVID diagnosis means I'm not going to tonight's meeting with the election. I'll try to put together a short video talking about the forward vision for the club. IDEK.
It took over a month for my hold on this book to come up, but Friday night I finished Martyr!by Kaveh Akbar. If you look into online book recommendations like on New York Times or NPR, you've probably seen this title come up. This book is about a young poet who sobers up after years of severe addiction and is now looking for meaning and purpose.
Martyr! is a beautiful book about the very human search for meaning in our lives, but it also is not afraid to shy away from the ugliness of that search. It juxtaposes eloquently-worded paragraphs of generational grief with Cyrus waking up having pissed the bed because he went to sleep so drunk the night before. Neither of these things cancels the other out.
Everyone in Martyr! is flawed, often deeply, but they're all also very real, and they're trying their best; they aren't trying to hurt anyone, but they cause hurt anyway, and then they and those around them just have to deal with that. Martyr! weighs the search for personal meaning against the duty owed to others and doesn't come up with a clean answer. What responsibility did Orkideh have to her family as opposed to herself? What responsibility did Ali have to Cyrus as opposed to himself? What responsibility does Cyrus have to Zee, as opposed to his search for a meaningful death?
Cyrus' story is mainly the post-sobriety story: He's doing what he's supposed to, he's not drinking or doing drugs, he's going to his AA meetings, he's working (after a fashion)...and what's the reward? He still can't sleep at night and he feels directionless and alone and now he doesn't even have the ecstasy of a good high to look forward to. This is the "so what now?" part of the sobriety journey.
It's also in many ways a family story. Cyrus lost his mother when he was young and his father shortly after he left for college, and he spends the book trying to reckon with these things and with the people his parents were. Roya is the mother Cyrus never knew, whose shape he could only vaguely sketch out from his father's grief and his unstable uncle's recollections. Ali is the father who supported Cyrus in all practical ways, and sacrificed mightily to do it, but did not really have the emotional bandwidth to be there for his son. And there are parallels between Cyrus and Roya arising later in the book that tugged quite hard on my heartstrings, but I won't spoil anything here.
Cyrus wants to find meaning, but seems only able to grasp it in the idea of a meaningful death--hence his obsession with martyrs. The idea of a life with meaning seems beyond him. He struggles throughout the book with this and with the people trying to suggest that dying is not the only way to have lived.
I really enjoyed this book and I think it deserves the praise it's gotten. I've tried to sum up here what the book is "about," but it's a story driven by emotion more than plot. It's Cyrus' journey and his steps and stumbles along the way, and I think Akbar did a wonderful job with it.
You can choose from lots of colors and styles, from just ears and paws to full animal heads on top. Click the link to see the rest, I especially love the fox & leopard.
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tielan
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