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vital functions
Jun. 22nd, 2025 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett... is a placeholder because I am doing so badly at routines in general and bedtime routines in particular, still, augh.
kaberettegregious backdating for completionism's sake
Jun. 20th, 2025 11:40 pmkaberettI went "HOLD ON I HAVEN'T POSTED--" at 00:01 last night, when I had already been in bed but failing to sleep for about twenty minutes, and so I will tell you that part of the reason that I did not manage to actually post, actually yesterday, is that my reward for having finally e-mailed the headache clinic and said "so yeah I took my loading doses in mid-April, sorry I didn't manage to e-mail at the time, executive dysfunction has been eating my entire brain"...
... was of course a response like "well ideally your follow-up appointment would have been last week but, okay, fine, how about Monday? :|"
"... oh and by the way you know those questionnaires we want you to submit a minimum of a week in advance? yeah if you could get those done too--"
-- which: ENTIRE brain.
(I managed to confirm the Monday appointment. I did not manage to get the headache diary and questionnaires done.)
to reach the brightest light, to reach the mighty sun
Jun. 20th, 2025 03:55 pmursamajorI started writing about our May concert weeks ago, and then got caught up in the swell of all of our June concerts. Three down, two to go!
hyounpark's mom and sister came out for our May concert - they'd wanted to come for Bocelli, but we took a look at ticket prices and required hotels and were like "even for a once in a lifetime thing like this we cannot in good conscience ask you to shell out mid-four-figures for a weekend in Napa." So instead, they came out for the reprise of Here I Stand: Paul Robeson, which also included Jasmine Barnes' Sometimes I Cry, and Brahms' 2nd Symphony. The performance went well, and was recorded! So I'm looking forward to being able to share that when it's released.
We also stuffed ourselves silly that weekend, but it was a good chance to just hang out at Leonard and Sara's and be lazy and have family time. Takeout sushi from Miyozen and wings from Wingstop while we worked on puzzles; curries for dinner from House of Curries; an excellent Hunanese dinner at Wojia the following evening.
H might have been a little more strategic on the eating front; 36 hours after we were onstage at the Paramount, he ran Bay to Breakers. I happily raced him across the city on the train per usual; devoured soda bread and a ganache cold brew on the beach at Sunset Dunes while waiting for him to catch up.
After that, we launched straight into prep for Beethoven and the symphony gala fundraiser. While we were waiting to go onstage for the gala, my little corner of sopranos was by what was very clearly The Party Table at the fundraiser. Highly amusing. We made ABC News for like half a second, and I was mostly blocked by the piano; perils of being a short soprano, lol.
Beethoven's 9th last Friday was the official wrap on our season, and I'm glad our director said what he did about it in his introduction, referencing that Beethoven was writing it in a time of much upheaval; that no matter the challenges, in our community, we seek and elevate joy; that this is our calling as musicians. An die freude, indeed.
*
We're approaching six years out here in California, now; as of yesterday, celebrating 20 years together withhyounpark. (25 years on LJ/DW, at least off and on.) It seems like the universe is recognizing it, nestling into that theme of growing community ties. Just in the last week alone:
- H and I went to an a cappella concert on Sunday at the Freight, and one of the musicians was a college classmate.
- one of the additional singers we brought on for B9? Turned out to be my elementary school music teacher, who now lives less than a mile away from us. She was like, "Oh my god, I was so strict in those years!" Me, ever the diplomat: "Eh, I'd call it orchestral." Everyone in listening distance cracked up.
- on my way to rehearsal on Tuesday, I ran into one of my biking friends as they were going into BART and I was coming up out of BART. I'm finally starting to run into people serendipitously more often!
- at bike brunch last Friday, one of my friends from the food writing class I took in March was at the cafe we'd ridden to, and apparently they bike too, so of course I invited them to join us on future rides.
- at the B9 concert, friends in the audience included new biking friends, old fandom friends, and even older elementary school friends.
And now, we just got a last-minute song added to our setlist for the Bocelli concerts this weekend about 45 minutes ago, so I go cram. And make sure my clothes are washed. And check the Wine Country weather. And overhydrate. And make sure of our carpool. And that I have coughdrops. And sunscreen. And shoes that are both concert-dress-appropriate and walkable for tromping across the vineyard grounds.
hyounpark's mom and sister came out for our May concert - they'd wanted to come for Bocelli, but we took a look at ticket prices and required hotels and were like "even for a once in a lifetime thing like this we cannot in good conscience ask you to shell out mid-four-figures for a weekend in Napa." So instead, they came out for the reprise of Here I Stand: Paul Robeson, which also included Jasmine Barnes' Sometimes I Cry, and Brahms' 2nd Symphony. The performance went well, and was recorded! So I'm looking forward to being able to share that when it's released. We also stuffed ourselves silly that weekend, but it was a good chance to just hang out at Leonard and Sara's and be lazy and have family time. Takeout sushi from Miyozen and wings from Wingstop while we worked on puzzles; curries for dinner from House of Curries; an excellent Hunanese dinner at Wojia the following evening.
H might have been a little more strategic on the eating front; 36 hours after we were onstage at the Paramount, he ran Bay to Breakers. I happily raced him across the city on the train per usual; devoured soda bread and a ganache cold brew on the beach at Sunset Dunes while waiting for him to catch up.
After that, we launched straight into prep for Beethoven and the symphony gala fundraiser. While we were waiting to go onstage for the gala, my little corner of sopranos was by what was very clearly The Party Table at the fundraiser. Highly amusing. We made ABC News for like half a second, and I was mostly blocked by the piano; perils of being a short soprano, lol.
Beethoven's 9th last Friday was the official wrap on our season, and I'm glad our director said what he did about it in his introduction, referencing that Beethoven was writing it in a time of much upheaval; that no matter the challenges, in our community, we seek and elevate joy; that this is our calling as musicians. An die freude, indeed.
*
We're approaching six years out here in California, now; as of yesterday, celebrating 20 years together with
hyounpark. (25 years on LJ/DW, at least off and on.) It seems like the universe is recognizing it, nestling into that theme of growing community ties. Just in the last week alone:- H and I went to an a cappella concert on Sunday at the Freight, and one of the musicians was a college classmate.
- one of the additional singers we brought on for B9? Turned out to be my elementary school music teacher, who now lives less than a mile away from us. She was like, "Oh my god, I was so strict in those years!" Me, ever the diplomat: "Eh, I'd call it orchestral." Everyone in listening distance cracked up.
- on my way to rehearsal on Tuesday, I ran into one of my biking friends as they were going into BART and I was coming up out of BART. I'm finally starting to run into people serendipitously more often!
- at bike brunch last Friday, one of my friends from the food writing class I took in March was at the cafe we'd ridden to, and apparently they bike too, so of course I invited them to join us on future rides.
- at the B9 concert, friends in the audience included new biking friends, old fandom friends, and even older elementary school friends.
And now, we just got a last-minute song added to our setlist for the Bocelli concerts this weekend about 45 minutes ago, so I go cram. And make sure my clothes are washed. And check the Wine Country weather. And overhydrate. And make sure of our carpool. And that I have coughdrops. And sunscreen. And shoes that are both concert-dress-appropriate and walkable for tromping across the vineyard grounds.
oof but I am having difficulty getting back into routines post-event
Jun. 19th, 2025 11:01 pmkaberettI have managed all of my physio once and only once this week. I have not yet got on the mat at all. I have been spending a lot of time asleep, which probably shouldn't surprise me, and a fair amount migrainey, which does (unpleasantly). Have this evening at least managed to send the email to the headache clinic that's been due since April, and consequently may or may not actually get an appointment in time to get a prescription in time to not need to reload the f2f galcanezumab again.
(Have also been really struggling with actually opening notebook since the last trip up north, which is helping precisely nothing. Maybe acknowledging that here will make it a little less scary to go back to, at least.)
More tiny excitements
Jun. 18th, 2025 09:31 pmazurelunatic* Shelves are fairly well stuffed. The other brackets have arrived, so we can go get more boards and tiny hardware at our convenience.
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial atthe_comfortable_courtesan!!!
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial at
the_comfortable_courtesan!!!Things
Jun. 19th, 2025 01:01 pmvassBooks
Started Freya Marske's A Power Unbound.
Fandom
I'm mostly reading Nine Worlds or The Goblin Emperor fanfic right now.
Recs:
A Nuisance Though Thou Art, by![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
wedgetail. (The Goblin Emperor, complete.) Setheris dies when Maia's eleven.
Wheel and turn or bleed and burn byDrel_Murn. (Nine Worlds, WIP) Pern fusion. The fire lizard character is a delight. Mind the rape/noncon warning: that's not just because of the dubcon nature of mating flights.
fake a smile, byariex09, crownedrooster, fire_eyes_chica, and rattyjol (Nine Worlds. Series: five complete stories and two WIPs.) crownedrooster wrote an upsetting fic back in late 2023 in which Fitzroy, during ROFA, makes a bad bargain with a memory-stealing creature. Since then, various people (including crownedrooster) have written follow-ups, fix-its, make-it-worses, and complicate-it-furthers.
Music
Listened to the Doors' song 'The End'. Did no one in the recording studio try to help that poor man? During the bridge, I mean, when he stumbled into that giant hornet nest and they all started stinging him.
Crafts
Didn't actually do a craft, but I did go to the introductory safety talk at a library's maker space, so now I can go there and use the equipment.
Things I learned there:
- The Cricut's pressing plate (operating temperature 200'C) is not an elbow rest. (The librarian giving the talk reported that it used to be located in another part of the room, but they kept on leaning their elbow near or on it. It wasn't turned on at the time, but their supervisor saw the writing on the wall and made them relocate it somewhere harder to touch accidentally.)
- The word "Cricut" is pronounced "cricket", not "cry, cut" as I'd thought.
Games
Still slaying the spire. I've now gotten every character up to at least two ascension levels, three for Clad and the Defect.
Weather
So fucking cold. So of course my hot water boiler went on the blink this week. Fortunately it just needed power cycling. Unfortunately I didn't think of this for myself. I'll know next time.
Nature
I saw a kangaroo in my backyard on Monday.
What was it doing there? Hopping.
How did it get there? Through the driveway.
What kind of roo? Eastern grey.
How big was it? Standing upright, I think about as tall as me, but it was too far for me to be sure.
Male or female? I didn't ask. There was something dangling, but I didn't get close enough to see if that was genitals or a joey. Given the height, probably a boomer?
What did you do? Stared at it, took photos, did not approach.
How did you get it out? I didn't. I watched it to make sure it wasn't hurt or sick or stuck, then went to the library for the safety talk. It hopped out again before I got home.
Pics or it didn't happen? For privacy reasons, I am not posting pictures of the kangaroo in a public Dreamwidth post. But I did take photos.
The kangaroo's privacy? Yes. I don't want to antagonise it.
Started Freya Marske's A Power Unbound.
Fandom
I'm mostly reading Nine Worlds or The Goblin Emperor fanfic right now.
Recs:
A Nuisance Though Thou Art, by
Wheel and turn or bleed and burn by
fake a smile, by
Music
Listened to the Doors' song 'The End'. Did no one in the recording studio try to help that poor man? During the bridge, I mean, when he stumbled into that giant hornet nest and they all started stinging him.
Crafts
Didn't actually do a craft, but I did go to the introductory safety talk at a library's maker space, so now I can go there and use the equipment.
Things I learned there:
- The Cricut's pressing plate (operating temperature 200'C) is not an elbow rest. (The librarian giving the talk reported that it used to be located in another part of the room, but they kept on leaning their elbow near or on it. It wasn't turned on at the time, but their supervisor saw the writing on the wall and made them relocate it somewhere harder to touch accidentally.)
- The word "Cricut" is pronounced "cricket", not "cry, cut" as I'd thought.
Games
Still slaying the spire. I've now gotten every character up to at least two ascension levels, three for Clad and the Defect.
Weather
So fucking cold. So of course my hot water boiler went on the blink this week. Fortunately it just needed power cycling. Unfortunately I didn't think of this for myself. I'll know next time.
Nature
I saw a kangaroo in my backyard on Monday.
What was it doing there? Hopping.
How did it get there? Through the driveway.
What kind of roo? Eastern grey.
How big was it? Standing upright, I think about as tall as me, but it was too far for me to be sure.
Male or female? I didn't ask. There was something dangling, but I didn't get close enough to see if that was genitals or a joey. Given the height, probably a boomer?
What did you do? Stared at it, took photos, did not approach.
How did you get it out? I didn't. I watched it to make sure it wasn't hurt or sick or stuck, then went to the library for the safety talk. It hopped out again before I got home.
Pics or it didn't happen? For privacy reasons, I am not posting pictures of the kangaroo in a public Dreamwidth post. But I did take photos.
The kangaroo's privacy? Yes. I don't want to antagonise it.
today I have mostly been asleep
Jun. 17th, 2025 11:47 pmkaberettThe watch tells me I achieved +102 "body battery" points, which I am amused to see.
But I have also visited the allotment (on my way back from physio) and have eaten: raspberries, a strawberry, a cherry, redcurrants, jostaberries, peas, broad beans, kohlrabi. V pleased.
two^W some good things
Jun. 14th, 2025 11:59 pmkaberettItem the first: I have no idea what the hell made the ominous donk-slither-donk noise in the portaloo at about midnight last night, but the phone I'd convinced myself it was was in a neat little pile with my laptop, in the tent, in the morning -- after I'd spent some time being sad about inadequate backups of photos of tiny sleepy rhinos -- which was an enormous relief (though I am also very pleased with myself for how well I handled things). (Especially given that my conviction that this was what had happened was in part based on being as aware as I could be of how abruptly my cognitive function had deteriorated with Surprise Unscheduled Migraine Onset.) (Still haven't worked out what on earth the donk-slither-donk was, but it's none of the obvious Truly Upsetting things to have lost, so I'm Currently Fine With This.)
Item the second: it is hot. This field contains lots of chamomile, and also lots of people. I am really enjoying the way it smells.
Item the third: I am really enjoying the dark chocolate + salt + nuts snack bars that crew welfare is providing, which I'd not previously noticed.
Item four: THE HALBARD THAT IS A SHARK.
[fieldposting] day 0 complete
Jun. 12th, 2025 11:53 pmkaberettI am already very very tired.
But.
In a magnificent example of Prosocial Mammals: yesterday, when we were like 3/4 of the way to site, I realised that I no longer had "migraine stabs" on my packing list because I had carefully arranged things so that stabs would be due on a Tuesday so I would never need to faff with stabs in a field again.
... which I completely forgot. Until. 3/4.
... so I put out a Wail addressed to Londoners who would be Heading To The Field, and one of them ACTUALLY WENT on the terrible multi-borough fetch quest to get me my stabs so I HAVE BEEN STABBED and was only one day late, not a week! which is probably going to make the next month much more pleasant! and I just. continue delighted about this.
There you go that's your anecdote of the day.
Shelf status
Jun. 11th, 2025 08:32 pmazurelunaticThree shelves (10' length, more or less) have been assembled, put up on the north wall, and filled to great effect. This emptied 1 entire Billy (with slight double stacking). We therefore need bookends.
The empty Billy is now in the living room, with the top few shelves embookinated and various plastic craft-adjacent boxes on the lower shelves. This is making a significant dent in the chaos by my desk.
The shorter bookshelf is currently at the end of the hall, for lack of a better place to put it. I expect that if it stays there long, I will start racking up another set of incredible bruises, and I still don't know where the one on my right arm CAME from. (I remember that I walked into some corner on my sleepy and unstable way to bed and then went "well, THAT'll leave a mark!" but do I remember what that something WAS? No more than I remembered what things I'd rammed into when I was taking Drama in high school, and my legs were forever dotted with black and blue marks.)
Today after work, Belovedest has put up all the standards (upright rails) on the south wall, embracketed them with however many brackets we currently have, and has started to assemble board pieces into full length shelves.
Coincidentally, today I also got a notification from the hardware store that they are shipping the backordered brackets.
There is onefree-loving* free-standing bookshelf remaining in the room, where it is cheerfully getting in the way. I suggested a different method of assembly which neither requires turning the boards lengthwise nor doing the assembly behind the Billy, which suggestion was well-received.
Eventually there will be enough Shelf in the media room that some of the things taking up floor space will be able to go on them.
Today I roused in the morning long enough to feel bleugh, then woke up in the afternoon feeling competent to Lounge. Still craving bacon at intervals.
* My high school freshman Biology class had a crucial typo in a sentence about free-living organisms. We reacted about how you'd expect.
The empty Billy is now in the living room, with the top few shelves embookinated and various plastic craft-adjacent boxes on the lower shelves. This is making a significant dent in the chaos by my desk.
The shorter bookshelf is currently at the end of the hall, for lack of a better place to put it. I expect that if it stays there long, I will start racking up another set of incredible bruises, and I still don't know where the one on my right arm CAME from. (I remember that I walked into some corner on my sleepy and unstable way to bed and then went "well, THAT'll leave a mark!" but do I remember what that something WAS? No more than I remembered what things I'd rammed into when I was taking Drama in high school, and my legs were forever dotted with black and blue marks.)
Today after work, Belovedest has put up all the standards (upright rails) on the south wall, embracketed them with however many brackets we currently have, and has started to assemble board pieces into full length shelves.
Coincidentally, today I also got a notification from the hardware store that they are shipping the backordered brackets.
There is one
Eventually there will be enough Shelf in the media room that some of the things taking up floor space will be able to go on them.
Today I roused in the morning long enough to feel bleugh, then woke up in the afternoon feeling competent to Lounge. Still craving bacon at intervals.
* My high school freshman Biology class had a crucial typo in a sentence about free-living organisms. We reacted about how you'd expect.
delight of the evening
Jun. 11th, 2025 11:54 pmkaberettOkay. So.
Admin: the LRP has a variety of in-game resources. One of the more valuable ones is mithril, which gets used for all sorts of things, like armour and weaponry and building works, particularly military ones.
This event we are seeing the launch of The Cow Stock Market. This inevitably was a topic of discussion over this evening's pizza: discussion of the designs of the I Promise To Pay The Bearer On Demand One (1) Cow slips! speculation over Cow Futures! debate over the impact on the gold mithril standard!
It'll be fiiiiiiiiiine, says A. It'll all be TOTALLY fine. You can absolutely build fortifications out of cows!
-- and at this point, for those of you who are abruptly cackling, I need to point out that A has not read Nona the Ninth.
I also need to point out that I am in a specific groupchat, specifically set up following the event where someone managed to get their hands on some copies of Nona a few days before official release and there was consequently significant in-field bartering for who got to be next in the queue to inhale them, that is named after. well. the cows. did you know that cows have best friends.
But A had no idea why I was abruptly losing it, and I decided that rather than attempt to explain I was in fact first of all going to Depart Our Table, find my Nona dealers, and relate unto them the story of The Thing A, All Unawares, Just Said.
The reaction was extremely gratifying.
sat up very straight at around this time last night and went "... oh"
Jun. 10th, 2025 11:29 pmkaberettTwo things:
I keep (especially post-surgery, cotemporal with relearning how to walk) finding more small ways that how I've been doing my various physio exercises isn't quite right. This is a good thing! Isn't it fascinating to be learning more about embodiment and how my body works and how I can best deploy my various muscles!
Up until the hypermobility clinic, all the physio I was ever prescribed made me worse, not better.
It abruptly dawned on me, all at once, that the subtlety of the changes I'm making with adjusting how I'm shifting my weight around and so on and so forth? Are almost certainly not actually externally visible. Like, yes, people not understanding hypermobility and problems with it was also Definitely A Problem, but -- the part where I'm still, mm, not necessarily fixing things but certainly developing them, finding places where even with What The Hypermobility Clinic Told Me To Do I wasn't getting quite right... well, the hypermobility specialists clearly went "eh, good enough", and in terms of the effects on my ability to Things I think they were clearly demonstrably provable correct, but -- yeah, okay, sudden understanding of some of just how difficult it would have been to correct some of this stuff.
(I'm very sure that all my various epiphanies will turn out to be about things that still aren't quite right, that I can still refine further -- I'm having an extended phase of that with Pilates right now -- but this is a good thing, actually. It's really nice to have such clear evidence that I'm getting to know and understand myself better.)
meme time: favorite characters by color
Jun. 10th, 2025 09:49 amalthea_valaraFirst y'all: I am disturbed that the original post I grabbed this from called this the "Favorite Characters Colors Addition". It is like nails on a chalkboard, the way I cringed. The correct word in this case is "Edition", and I half-assed a correction using Paint.
I gave a thought of branching out to other Final Fantasy games but no, I could fill the grid only with folks from Final Fantasy XIV, so I did so.
( cut to spare your reading pages, but also: some light character spoilers through Endwalker patches )
I gave a thought of branching out to other Final Fantasy games but no, I could fill the grid only with folks from Final Fantasy XIV, so I did so.
( cut to spare your reading pages, but also: some light character spoilers through Endwalker patches )
