katieastrophe | Network

conuly posting in

Dear Eric: My husband and I have been estranged from our 17-year-old granddaughter for eight years. We were loving, supportive grandparents but after the mother of our granddaughter broke up with our son, the father, she stopped our granddaughter from seeing us as well.

For eight years, I have tried to keep contact with our granddaughter with gifts and cards on her birthday, Christmas and other times. I do not receive a response of any kind from her. We believe her mother forbids her from contacting us.

My question is should I continue to send cards and gifts to her? I’m ready to stop. I don’t want her to forget us but I’m very tired of attempting to reach out to her with no response.

– Estranged Gramma

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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Eric: I’m married with four kids and have a sizable extended family. One son, who is in seventh grade, runs track and finished the season with personal records in his events, which also happen to place second in his school’s all-time best records.

I sent out a family text to all of our extended family raving about his achievements. This is common amongst all of the aunts and uncles. We got a load of congrats. However, my husband’s brother side-texted my eldest daughter, “tell your brother to stop being first loser.” (He did not text any “congrats” to the group text.)

My daughter showed me the text and chuckled. I’m not sure if she showed my son. I’m so deeply angry about this. I know that everyone will tell me he was joking. Or that I’m misinterpreting his meaning. I just cannot get over it.

My initial feeling is to keep my son as far away from his uncle as possible for the rest of his life. My second feeling is to call said uncle to tell him he is a complete loser himself (which would be super biting as he just got laid off, has to sell his house and downsize everything). I know I won’t do either but I am having a hard time imagining being around him this summer as our families usually get together each summer for a few days.

How do I express by complete disdain for his comments without upsetting the entire extended family? Am I being oversensitive?

– Second to None

( Read more... )

chestnut_pod posting in

thisfinecrew

I am aware of both these community orgs through their ties to the MALDEF and Raices. Happy to discuss more via DW message if you want more vouching.

Short-term/immediate bail and jail assistance for protesters: Jail Support LA

Jail support campaign of a long-running SGV mutual aid network: Operation Healthy Hearts

lannamichaels

Somehow we got a spring this year -- after so many years of maybe a week between winter and summer -- and I am so so so happy and relieved. Summer is certainly icumen in, but we have had spring. An actual spring. Yay.

kiya

Fine

Change is a
Crucible
And I am on fire;

The world burns
So hot
Nothing false in me
Can escape the flame

(and i hope
to survive it
i pray)

If we are
Any of us
To be okay
Ever again

We must rise in truth
Within the funeral pyre
Of our failures.

This is—

Current Mood: hopeful

rebeccmeister

My newest mulch pile:

Lovely little flowers on the French lavender:

The Dark Dahlia is behind the lavender, under some rhubarb leaves.

The wine barrel tomato plants are getting much bigger, and have some flowers going:

Some of the ripe strawberries (while walking Martha):

Yummy strawberry-arugula salad! Needed more strawberries. Next time.

rebeccmeister

My summer research team has started up today (3 students). It is going to be a good group, but is definitely going to require a lot of my time and bandwidth.

There are a couple of themes to write about from the Erie Canal trip. I want to write about Moss Island, and about all of the places where we ate food and drank coffee that were worth writing about (many!).

Also maybe about the locks we were able to check out, and learning about the original canal, the expansion about a decade later, and the contemporary canal. There are multiple canal museums along the trail, and we only visited a handful of them!

Then, we had National Learn to Row Day this past Saturday morning, where it rained cats, dogs, and elephants, but because of that I was able to tackle a handful of important boathouse projects. (and in spite of the rain we still had 44 people come to visit us!).

And on Sunday I managed to get some gardening projects done. We're well into strawberry season, although I suspect it's going to be a short season. The lavender has flowers, and the Dark Dahlia has emerged from the soil. I got a second round of branch shredding done, so now there's a newer mulch pile back by the compost. I just feel so much better with everything shredded!

Onward.

umadoshi

Cat Herding: Our beloved Jinksy!bear turned twelve on Saturday. Twelve! He's (by a margin of a good few years) the second-oldest cat I've ever had, and continues to be just the sweetest, softest boy. May he be with us in good health for years to come.

It was also Claudia's birthday, of course, and I always think of her on their birthday. Oh, my darling baby cat.

*The oldest was Jenny, the cat of my childhood who was still with my parents for years after I moved out. She made it to nineteen, most of that time in rock-solid health, and never really forgave me for moving to Toronto and thus straight-up vanishing from her life for months at a time.

Reading: I finished reading Jennifer 8 Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, which remained an interesting read right through, and read Adrian Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances, which I think is only the second thing of his I've read? (Elder Race is the other one I'm sure of.) Having finished it, I'm in a position that's annoyingly familiar, where I liked the book quite a bit and am curious about what happens next, but am not sure I cared enough that I'll ever actually get around to picking up the sequel.

(The thing where I've almost entirely been reading books I own for years now doesn't really help, where I've often picked up the first book of a trilogy of series or whatever on sale in ebook because I've heard it's good, and then am not sure I'm invested enough to pay full price on the next one when I own literally hundreds of yet-unread books. Feh.)

Watching:

scruloose and I are up to date on Murderbot and have seen the first episode of Kingdom season 2.

In the case of the former, I'm skeptical about the nqqvgvba bs n punenpgre jub qbrfa'g nccrne va gur obbxf ng nyy--juvpu V'z abg vaureragyl ntnvafg, tvira gung gur fubj vf pyrneyl vgf bja guvat, naq V'z thrffvat fur'f gurer gb pbairl fbzrguvat gung jbhyq'ir orra gevpxl gb qb gur fnzr jnl va guvf sbezng nf va gur abiryyn. Ohg fur'f naablvat, naq V'yy cebonoyl xrrc svaqvat ure naablvat jurgure fur vf va snpg freivat jung V pheeragyl guvax vf ure cebonoyr shapgvba (rarzl ntrag znfdhrenqvat nf nyyl) be fbzrguvat zber vagrerfgvat. [ROT13] Guess we'll find out soon!

Working: Thank goodness the manga I'm working right now is (as usual) a fairly easy rewrite and not a tight deadline, because scrounging the mental energy for freelance work has been frustratingly hard recently. I'm almost halfway through my draft and have about a week and a half left with it, so it's fine, but. :/

Weathering/Householding: We've had a lot of gray days and some high-ish temperatures combined with humidity (which I hate), and the air quality, while not remotely as bad as it is in a lot of places, has been fluctuating significantly...and the AC function of the heat pumps is essentially nonfunctional. >.< This is crappy timing, given how much of the time over the last several days has required having the windows closed (and the air purifiers running for good measure, although they don't address some of the nastiness from wildfire smoke). And for bonus fun, while the heat pumps are still under warranty, the company we bought them from went under a few months ago, which complicates things. (I think possibly the main person died. :/)

That said,

scruloose made a bunch of calls today and we have reason to hope that someone can come in and take a look at them soon, if that particular company has the parts in stock. And while it's been uncomfortably warm inside some of the time because of this, at least it's not full summer yet. Hopefully we can get things dealt with by the time summer heat arrives in earnest.

And on a purely pleasant note, a couple nights ago we were in a phase of "somehow the air quality is fine outside right now, so we can just open the windows and run fans" while it was pleasantly cool and raining atmospherically and the wind was doing a wonderful job of wafting the smell of the lilacs into the living room.

Current Mood: contemplative

rmc28

Books on pre-order:

Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)

Books acquired in May:

and read:
1. Copper Script by KJ Charles
2. Red Boar's Baby by Lauren Esker
and unread:
1. The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh [3]
2. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan [3]
3. Kidnap on the California Comet by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman [3]
4. Betrayal (Trinity 1) by Fiona McIntosh [3]

Borrowed books read in May:

The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell
One Christmas Wish by Katherine Rundell
You Have a Match by Emma Lord [2][6]

I continue to not read much (by my standards). I did not manage to read any of the physical books I had out of the library until they needed to be returned, and I've got several half-finished books in progress. (Oh, and in writing this I've realised I already have the Renée Ahdieh book in ebook, and haven't read it there either!)

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

minoanmiss posting in

agonyaunt

I Left My 2-Year-Old Alone With My Husband for 15 Minutes. The Aftermath Might Haunt My Marriage Forever.

( Read more... )

minoanmiss posting in

agonyaunt

Help! My Husband’s Best Man Made a Stunning Admission During His Wedding Speech. I Might Never Get Over It.

( Read more... )

lnr

We still haven't met with Senior Management: it's now due tomorrow, in person. I'm gently trying not to panic.

There's still been no message of support to all members of staff and students from the University, and nothing at all from the department. Though I understand they're still in discussions in the background. This is frustrating.

The subject was raised at a recent All Staff meeting (in which people submit questions as text, and senior management attempt to answer them). We were given broad assurances that the university values and supports trans people, but nothing actually useful or genuinely supportive was said.

In the meantime a new EHRC chair is due to be appointed, and they're considering a person with a known anti-trans background. There's an Open Letter available to sign in protest, written by a very good friend and colleague: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_Y77t7CQqKjdGifNa0lE3HKjDAb1UoJdjuLAbInhIQsRMhw/viewform

I've also seen a good template if you want to write directly: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1865KMfu24JgmwnWmYXaVc3jlzj5uQFEq69hXMxKP6BU/edit?tab=t.0

And I wrote my own version:

9th June 2025
Dear Women’s and Equalities Select Committee and Joint Committee on Human Rights,
Cc: Pippa Heylings, as my MP

I am writing to express my grave concern about the proposed appointment of Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson as the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I won't include a string of references here, because I think you will have seen them all already, but I think it is imperative that the next person appointed as Head of the EHRC should not be seen to have a strong anti-trans background. Trans people are currently scared. Scared for their jobs, if they cannot access their workplace in safety and dignity. Scared of being assaulted if they go to the "wrong" toilet. Scared of being outed as trans in public if they try to follow the new guidelines.

And I am scared as a cis woman, a woman who is not trans, at what is happening in our country, and what this means for my friends and colleagues and for trans people in general. For intersex people, non-binary people, and any woman who might be mistaken for being trans. Other women need to feel safe too, but excluding trans people is not the way to do this.

The EHRC needs to stand up for the rights of everyone, and to be seen to do so. I sincerely hope you will take this into account.

Kind Regards,

Eleanor Blair
Great Shelford, Cambridge, CB22

I'm not even going to attempt to get into the member of the EHRC who was quoted as effectively saying that trans people have been misled about their rights under the Equality Act for the last 15 years, and there will now be a period of adjustment, but they should just get used to having fewer rights than they thought they did. The Guardian changed their headline and reporting three times as a result of her protesting about being misquoted, but that seems to have been the gist of it. Not mentioning that the "misleading" guidance came from the EHRC themselves, and was based on the previous understanding of the Equalities Act and entirely consistent with it. FFS

kiya

Last night's sleep was Bad in complex ways (I woke up at 6, tried to get back to sleep and did not until after 7, and then had to be up at 8:30 for church service). But that meant I woke up in the middle of a dream and thus remember some bits of it.

( Just a few remembered snippets, mostly because I remember them from telling KJ this morning. )

Current Mood: tired

fflo

Is this how the big lj [dreamwidth] breaks start? A couple of days away becomes a stretch, and then ... ?

Typically I scan or download postcard images and edit them and upload them via my own machine, in chunks, but then I guess I typically do the post during the work day, and, like I said at some point earlier, my work computer no longer connects to lj. Which is probably good. I mean, they're on top of security. Like we're adding another digit to our password minimum soon. It'll now be x + 1.

It's the week before the Spring concerts for my chorus. Didn't go with them to Ypsi Pride cuz accessibility sucks, and the people in charge were wishy-washy about it; even ride shares get snared at the very popular gathering. Woulda had to leave work after half a day, but it turned out I was off sick anyway. Plus the air quality was in the hazardous zone--- the little particulate, particularly. More Canadian wildfires.

Put together a little book of quotations from our outgoing conductor. That was fun.

A coupla big house projects are about to get their next steps. I suppose the bugs'll be out in the evenings soon. And the black raspberries before long.

Saw the latest Wes Anderson yesterday. That was arguably the treat of the weekend. Also have clean sheets on the bed---new ones, in fact---and plan to take a shower shortly, so I'll be clean getting into them later. Could top the movie, it can be so nice. Crisp, clean sheets.

flamingsword

I’m going on a journal-cleaning spree. If we have not really interacted in the last six months, I am probably going to unsubscribe from following you. I don’t have enough spoons and free time to follow all the people I still kinda want to. I deeply resent having to prioritize some kinds of human connection below real world practical considerations, but … such is life. 😞

I also will possibly be on here less to keep up with things for the next month or two, so if you have my contact info and want me to see a post of yours, please send me a link? School is going to head back into kick-my-ass mode here in another week or two, and possibly stay there as things move from science-heavy to the business and legal classes I am required to take. 😞😞😞

I have a headache just thinking about it.

jazzyjj posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

petra

My brain reward cycle is fucked, and the longer I think about it, the more I recognize that it's always been this way.

Case in point: I performed recently after preparing for 5 months.

My mother said, "It went well! That must feel good."

Me: "..."

It didn't. It never really does, not unless someone else gives me external validation.

Whenever I do something hard, my brain's response is, "Well, I did it, so how hard could it have been?"

This applies to excelling academically (which I have done frequently), excelling at my job (which I have done on occasion), every type of performance I've ever undertaken (and there have been a lot), every form of art/craft I've ever done (writing, knitting, crocheting, etc.), and helping friends.

Mostly I just feel relief that it's over, and my brain isn't going to give me the constant round of "You should work on [thing]!" anymore. Nah, the shoulds will switch to something else, but at least it'll be new at first.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Everyone can see that he's a wet Marvin boy

redbird

My right knee is healing, and stretching worked significantly better than yesterday. I even did a few carefully selected PT exercises this afternoon.

I can do more things standing up, and walking around the apartment is easier. However, I seem to have been leaning too much on the other leg, because my left knee started to hurt earlier. Not badly, but enough that I am putting the cane aside for the moment.

update Monday, 6/9: my knees feel mostly OK today. I am still being careful about walking a lot or standing too long. I just got the mail, figuring the two steps down to the mailboxes would be a useful check of how I'm doing. It was doable, but did hurt a little; I'm glad I decided not to go out. (The sidewalk is down another half dozen stairs, which are a bit more difficult than the ones inside, but the main thing is that this way I only had to climb back up two stairs.)

I heard from the GI doctor's office this morning, and have an appointment Friday at 10:30, which will be telemedicine. I hope my knees will be feeling a lot better by then, but if she had wanted to see me in person, I would have called a lyft and taken the quad cane with me just in case.

kaberett

Reading. FINISHED:

Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson. I can see why people like her! I have also remembered why I wound up unsubscribing from her blog. Very interesting proof of concept in re audiobooks, though.
Prophet, Helen MacDonald and Sin Blaché. Very enjoyable reread in which many things landed differently, in service of...
a word you've never understood, rydra_wong. EXACTLY the post-canon follow-up I wanted but would have absolutely failed to articulate. Have already tried to lure one more person into reading the book so I can then make them go read the fic. Now I just selfishly want Even More Of It.
Pain is really strange, Steve Haines. Reread for the purpose of making notes, this time. Sparked at least one useful thought. Following up references is a work in progress.
How to cook... Desserts, Leiths Cookery School. Read all the way through for the purposes of EYB indexing first pass! Go me.

STARTED:

Adventures in Stationery, James Ward. Borrowed from library on a whim for low-brain non-fiction.

Writing. First pass through indexing a cookbook on EYB!

Some Actual Notes re pain for The Book, including (and I am very proud of myself for this) actually writing down my questions alongside the bare "here's what it contained".

Watching. Murderbot S01E01. I am dubious but expecting to keep watching. If you encourage me I might say more when it is not past curfew.

Cooking. ... apparently I have not managed Much Of Note this week.

Eating. POTATOES at the ALLOTMENT courtesy of ALLOTMENT FRIENDS. Also finished my choi sum and had my first AMAZING broad beans and nibbled kohlrabi speculatively, all on Tuesday.

Today I have nibbled: a cherry; the first few redcurrants; a pod's worth of Kelvedon Wonder peas; half a tiny tomato.

Making & mending. Made some progress on A's left glove. Realised, belatedly, that I'd done the same thing with picking up stitches unevenly along the two sides of the palm. Ripped back most of the way to where I started from and Sulked. BUT HEY I've remembered the pattern and where I'd stowed all the bits for it!

Growing. See Eating for my biggest excitements. Sugar Magnolia (purple sugar-snap pea) now setting pods; my main intention with it this year (given that I planted a whole packet of seeds and have wound up with ...fewer plants than that) is just to get myself sorted with a significantly larger number of seeds for next year, but hey, maybe they'll all be super productive and I'll actually get to eat some too.

Stockings now at the plot to go onto the cherry tomorrow, hopefully.

Tomatoes planted out when tiny not doing so great (i.e. have mostly disappeared). Tomatoes planted out when larger Actually Flowering. Desperately need to stake the lot of them.

Tiny single solitary surviving oca has started to Go.

V grumpy about how poorly the squash I got started A While Ago have coped with getting put outside given that they are in biodegradable fibre pots so I'm not even disturbing their roots. Getting the rest of them in the ground AND THEN SOWING MORE very much also high on tomorrow's priority list. (And the beans, augh.)

Observing. Met a neighbour!

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Katie

February 2021

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Page Summary

conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
chestnut_pod in thisfinecrew - Two grassroots jail-support orgs re: L.A.
lannamichaels - not complaining about the weather too much????
kiya - New poem
rebeccmeister - Some garden updates [gardening]
rebeccmeister - The problem of too much to write about but not enough time to do so [status]
umadoshi - Weekly proof of life (belated again): sentimentality, reading habits, household things...
rmc28 - To-read pile, 2025, May
minoanmiss in agonyaunt - Care & Feeding: Wandering Toddler
minoanmiss in agonyaunt - Dear Prudence: Wedding Toast Blunder
lnr - EHRC nonsense
kiya - Dream surrealism
fflo - Postcard of the Day
fflo - dang, it's been a bit
flamingsword - Unfollowing. Feel free to do the same.
jazzyjj in awesomeers - Just one thing: 09 June 2025
petra - Neurodivergent reward cycle
redbird - boring knee update
kaberett - vital functions is struggling with time management and up way past curfew

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(no subject)

(no subject)

Two grassroots jail-support orgs re: L.A.

not complaining about the weather too much????

New poem

Fine

Some garden updates [gardening]

The problem of too much to write about but not enough time to do so [status]

Weekly proof of life (belated again): sentimentality, reading habits, household things...

To-read pile, 2025, May

Care & Feeding: Wandering Toddler

Dear Prudence: Wedding Toast Blunder

EHRC nonsense

Dream surrealism

Postcard of the Day

dang, it's been a bit

Unfollowing. Feel free to do the same.

Just one thing: 09 June 2025

Neurodivergent reward cycle

boring knee update

vital functions is struggling with time management and up way past curfew

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February 2021

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