tammylee | Reading

No, sorry, that's no 7-10 cm out there. It's damn near the 30 cm/ 1 foot they said would happen with lake effect, if not in fact more. Can't tell with the wind blowing: my porch alone had 15 cm piled up on it. My good neighbour(s) (plural because both J and C have snowblowers-- saw them hobnobbing as they cleared their respective frontages) snowblew the front walkway and sidewalk some time this morning. I went out at noon and did the steps and the accumulation on the walkway. Four hours later I went out and removed a foot off the steps and six inches from the walkway. Came in and as I was taking off my boots good neighbour C came and cleaned my steps again. Yes it is snowing that hard. My icon is exactly what's happening. Am bitterly regretting that dry January I decided on.

My weather memory is off, which disturbs me. I keep thinking this amount of snow is unusual, but it's not. We had a lot last year, not just the big dump in February, a major snowstorm in 2022, and enough in 2023. It was only 2024 that was dry enough for shoes. And for that matter, we had a January thaw in the second week. It was 15 on my birthday.

flemmings

A balmy 'feels like -9 / 16F' out there so, having survived the high winds and -20 of yesterday, thought to try my luck getting up to Loblaws, because of course tomorrow is Moar Snow. Again, not forecast to be the huge dump of elsewhere. 7-10 cm ie 2-4 inches, like Wednesday. But not easy to be out in and possibly making home delivery a problem, what with snow berms on either side of my street.

Walking wasn't too bad. Ice ridges in the street where snow plows dumped their loads but the corners themselves flattened enough to be passable. A few houses on my block had cut narrow passages for the able-bodied, a few hadn't shovelled at all, but the next block was clear all the way. Except it was clear because someone-- and it must have been the city's contracted snow cleaners because no one else has that kind of largesse-- had dumped piles of salt every few metres and then spread a cm over the entire sidewalk. I do not understand how any of this works, and I'm not even sure the city is still contracting their cleaning out.

Being on a Dr. Siri roll and having exhausted the paperback versions, got the next one in ebook from the library. (Parenthetically, this is a typical winter in that getting dead tree from the library is suspended until at least March.) But either the format or the actual three-strand plot of I Shot the Buddha had me beat. Half way through I had to go back and start again, and when finished, had to go back and reread several passages a third time. Almost as bad/ good as Diana Wynn Jones or early Ima Ichiko for twistiness. I think there are only three more of these so on I go.

yhlee

yhlee

Nicolas Niarchos. The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth. I think I got this rec from Farah Mendlesohn. Apparently the entire "green energy" resource supply chain (including/especially the batteries) is fucked to hell and gone, including/especially in the human rights arena. Which is not surprising as such, but this is a field I don't follow in any detail (the world is FULL OF THINGS TO KNOW and I can't be expert in them all).

From the jacket copy:

In this rush for green energy, the world has become utterly reliant on resources unearthed far away and willfully blind to the terrible political, environmental, and social consequences of their extraction. Why are the children of the Democratic Republic of the Congo routinely descending deep into treacherous mines to dig with the most rudimentary of tools, or in some cases their bare hands? Why are Indonesia's seas and skies being polluted in a rush for battery metals? Why is the Western Sahara, a source for phosphates, still being treated like a colony? Who must pay the price for progress?

This is ©2026 and just released, but of course...:gestures at current events:

:looks at small collection of slide rule, Napier's bones, abacuses, manual typewriters: Well.

yhlee

Featured Friday: Yoon Ha Lee [Zealotscript.co.uk, interview].

I apologize in advance for the closing :kof: pun.

Which one of your characters would you most like to spend time with?

Excuse me, I had to be revived from a fit of the vapors. I give my characters difficult lives (when they survive at all) so it’s a common joke in my family that if they ever came to life, I am so, so very dead. I guess Shuos Mikodez from Machineries of Empire is the least likely to kill or torture me inhumanely for no reason. Alternately, Min from Dragon Pearl is like ten years old and I am not only a parent, I used to teach high school math so I reckon I can handle her. (Famous last words…)

flemmings

I must assume it's the current political climate that has me all wibbly about the impending meteorological one. Polar vortices are nothing new in this town: we had one last year. But of course this year comes on top of snow dumps and is set to last till the end of January, not just a day or two and done.

It starts tonight so I went out in today's sunshine and relative warmth to stock up at Fiesta, even though it meant threadinng my way between ice berms and garbage bins. A bobcat had come up the street and done its best with those houses that couldn't be arsed to shovel last week's accumulation, but of course it had turned to unmoving ice by today. So three houses in a row had ice ridges in front. One or two other places put down salt that had begun to break up the ice, but that will all freeze again tonight. I do so wish I was still able-bodied enough to take my ice chopper to it, because I could have cleared it all in fifteen minutes. At least my side of the Greek gardener's corner lot was clear, though the Follis stretch looked untouched. But insult to injury, the actual corner had a great puddle that I was forced to wade through in my ancient leaky boots.

However am now reasonably set for the next week if I have to stay indoors. But I really need to get a massage for my twinging back since that's what's making moving difficult now. I have money for luxuries because my physio is on vacation next week, I can't get out to restaurants, I'm not buying alcohol, and my dental cleaning cost me $13-- not because of insurance but because I paid for something last year that insurance reimbursed half of, so I had a wodge of cash on account.

yhlee

The keyboard's legit great but I replaced some of the keycaps (the black ones that let the glow shine through) because I cannot find the hecking function keys in the dark reliably; I don't often use them outside of music production, the lighting in this room sucks, and I have a horrifying number of typing keyboards where the function key locations are just enough offset to throw off touch-typing.

custom keycaps and space bar

I'm unreasonably happy with the space bar! The seller will 3D print custom images/text if you send an image so I made a design for hilarity. :)

flemmings

My brother texts me:

Snow, snow, go away
Come again some other day
Early August, shall we say?

I tell him the snow has its fingers in its ears singing La la la don't hear you. At least it wasn't the dump we had last week, just 5 or 6 centimetres ie 2 inches. I swept it from the steps and shovelled it from the walkway and sidewalk. More fell in the late afternoon, covering the steps, but the sidewalk remains clear. Either foot traffic or the city salting, though I haven't seen any bobcats. I might try getting out tomorrow, though now they're calling for gusty winds before the bipolar vortex comes back tomorrow night. And of course if I'm up at Loblaws I'll want to buy cream liqueur and if I go to Fiesta I'll want to buy cake, and I mustn't have either. Not merely calories: my innards really don't like alcohol but my spasming back muscles love it.

Have read nothing but Dr Siris because nothing else registers. Can't remember if I'm on 11 or 12 at the moment.

flemmings

Made it to the dentist. Did not die, though I thought I might while waiting on College St for my cab. Wind tunnels at -10C will get you wind chills of -22, whatever that may be F, because 'forking freezing' is not a scientific measurement. Driver kept yawning since extreme cold also leads to somnolence. Am yawning now at quarter to six. Which may be fallout from the dentist or may be tiredness from getting up this morning when I first woke up. Seems I need the extra hours I get from sleeping in.

Cabs always come early so I had an hour to kill. Intended to get something from Tim's and then found I'd forgotten the toothbrush and paste I'd carefully put in a bag for this eventuality. Well, fine, shall mail that parcel I've had ready for weeks since there's a post office in the same building. Had the photo of my QR code for overseas customs declaration. But as ever the PO scanner couldn't read it and a 1 o'clock line was forming behind me. So I went to the side and filled out the form again on my phone-- and let me say, people who live on their phones must have different keyboards or smaller fingers than I, because writing anything on my android is a fiddly heartbreaking exercise. This goes double for Japanese addresses, but in the end my phone was completely readable. So this is what I'll do in future. Asked the clerk what people do who don't have smartphones and she said They just don't send parcels. I begin to lose sympathy for Canada Post. We won't mention sending anything to the US, with customs to be paid in advance via one app only. The customs thing is their current administration (quae delenda est) but I think the mandatory app is pure Canuck bureaucracy.

feuervogel

It's probably my last, because I've had increasingly stronger reactions over the last 3 or 4. After the original pair, I had the expected muscle aches and tiredness, but after the last one, I had fever (38.6) and chills and spent 2 days in bed with max ibuprofen until a friend suggested taking Benadryl. That cleared it up.

Yesterday I took 25 mg of Benadryl before the shot (3 pm) and another 25 after (because I didn't want to pass out on the bus), then went to bed early. Today I've had worsening fever and chills that Benadryl helps somewhat, and I just took 600 mg of ibu because I woke up from my nap and was shivering violently. I'm also hungry and queasy at the same time, and my neck is sore and stiff.

I went for a short walk before getting groceries and felt Wrong, and while I was shopping, I got queasy.

So most likely it's some kind of allergic-type reaction. I can't find anything useful through Duck Duck Go, unfortunately. I don't know if I should go to a doctor if I'm not better tomorrow.

The ibu brought down my fever and made my skin stop hurting, so that's an improvement. I'm going to go eat some applesauce, because the thought of anything solid makes me gag.

flemmings

Because my kitchen floor is technically clean I went downstairs in bare feet this morning to weigh myself. Chuffed that I've lost that Christmas kilo and maybe a little extra. Which will probably not stay off because this evening I made satay peanut sauce to have with stir-fried carrots and cabbage and ohh yum I love peanut sauce. OTOH staying indoors means no alcohol and minimal sweet stuff, so maybe.

But I washed kitchen floor again because it still looks grungy, and bent to get at some of the deep corners. The floor never gets really clean unless I sit down on it and work square by square, which I no longer dare to do, with the Goof-off I no longer have. I also had a go at the front hallway which does look slightly better. Used a squeegee mop and a cut up waffle top that had finally got holey past repair, but for real cleaning you need a cloth diaper and the last one I had of those shredded long ago. Also am out of the acrylic stuff that gives vinyl tile a shine. However I should be pleased that I could do the crouch and push without knees and elbows screaming, or at least, not screaming today.

yhlee

Catlin(s) (from CJ Cherryh's Cyteen)

for

ilyena_sylph

digital fanart: Catlin I & II from CJ Cherryh's Cyteen

flemmings

Hardy Canadian me looked at the sorta clear sidewalks from my window, looked at the weather forecast (3C now, temps dropping rapidly this evening), and put on her boots to go to the supermarket. Going was easy enough, even over the slush of the houses that had removed most but not all of Thursday's snow. Only had to detour once into the street, because the corner house at the end of the block was completely untouched. Suspect the Greek gardener is in Greece or something. But the opposite corner was passable and the Baptists, somehow getting their act together at long last, had cleared the whole width of the sidewalks on both sides of their lot. I'd say snowblower but there were no mounds of blown snow to be seen, so where they put it all is a mystery. Am grateful they did, whatever.

So now I have potatoes and swiss cheese and eggs to make omelets with, and lime juice to make peanut sauce for the cabbage (napa) and carrots I have from the greengrocer. Must boil the carrots first because they don't cook otherwise.

I did scrape the remains of the snow from my walkway and sidewalk this morning. Hope it dries before it freezes but I have salt and sand even if it does. Next door M (age 9) came out to try to shovel his front walk with minimal success because neither if their shovels has a metal edge, which is what you need for icy slush. I lent him my ice scraper which seems to have worked. But their front path has paving stones that makes it difficult to shovel things completely flat. There are benefits to mundane concrete aftercall.

flemmings

Was out scraping packed down snow from the front sidewalk, now temps are however briefly above 'frozen solid', and had to step back for a gaggle of school kids coming up the street, lagging behind their impatient mother and dragging toboggans behind them. Shortly followed by NND and M heading out down the street with a toboggan. NND confirms that schools are still closed even though the streets are plowed. Whoever else may or jay not be enjoying this old fashioned winter, the kids must surely be in heaven. A four day weekend and infinite tobogganing, how cool is that?

Garbage trucks did make it out this evening, though I shall be surprised if people then put their bins back. Still don't see me going out any time soon. See: snowploughs creating mountain ridges at all street corners. Or pools, since tomorrow will be above freezing. Cooked a turkey roll and did a dark wash and tried to get the kitchen floor clean with indifferent success, and that was my day.

yhlee

By way of

sovay: Stand with Minnesota, appears to be locally vetted. I've made a modest donation to one of the listed organizations.

(Still buried under health + family + work + school stuff as well, sorry - if I'm not responding or late to respond, that's why.)

flemmings

Seeing it's going to be one of Those Winters. Did not put my recycling out last night, not least because the new recycling company have been less than efficient. Horror stories abound. Some neighbourhoods were skipped entirely last time, some they only took one side of the street and didn't come back for the other, one guy called to complain and a truck came by to pick up his recycling but not anyone else's on the street. There have been complaints, so our loathèd premier says Well if you downtown lefties don't like it, you handle the recycling yourselves. Conveniently forgetting that we've always handled our recycling and it was Ford's own idea to bring in a private company. I swear the man acts more like Trump everyday.

But mostly it was because another snowstorm was set to begin last night and begin it did. Hard to tell how much we got with the winds blowing the stuff around, but by day's end the roofs looked like a good eight inches/ 20 cm. My lovely neighbours did my steps and walkway while out snowblowing the sidewalk, but of course I had to go out and sweep/ shovel the new stuff, twice. It was light powder-- which it should be, given the vortex temperatures-- so sweepable enough, but my back still hates me doing it.

I had a dentist appt scheduled for next Wednesday so I booked my physio for Tuesday. Dentist calls me this morning asking can I come in Tuesday instead, so I said sure. Went to rebook my physio and she has nothing available for the next two weeks, and then she's away for a week. So now I'm on standby and fingers crossed, both that there'll be a cancellation and that I can get up the street to get to it.

And the recycle bins are still sitting in front of everyone's houses. Though-- NB, Mr. Ford-- the green bins were emptied promptly this morning by the old garbage company, even with six inches of snow.

flemmings

Snow and freezing temps. I suppose I should go down to the basement and run a dribble of water to prevent freezing pipes, also to get my underwear before I run out. But hardy!Canuck me thinks it's wimpy for pipes to freeze at a mere -12C/10F and anyway I have underwear till Friday.

Finished a single Dr. Priestley, name and plot forgotten. (OK, Murder at Derivale, about a no-gooder killed by an obscure poison in the back of a truck.) Also vols. 2 to 4 of Siri Paiboun. Am rereading these as a 'get them out of the house' strategy. I know to skip the one set in Cambodia but did wind up reading the other I wanted to pass over. They have a lowering effect, not surprising in a series set in late 1970s Laos. Works as an object lesson, I guess: you think *now* is bad? Look how much worse it can get. But still, I should take a break. If I want mysteries entwined with weird bollocks, I now have the complete Max Carrados, in e-format yet, thanks to incandescens.

Continue with Da Vinci, a few pages at a time because I might actually learn something from it, just, the process is not being fun.

white_aster

Still not dead yet!

Major stuff I've read lately:
- Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell - A somewhat dated but solid book on plot and structure. It's kind of genre-oriented rather than literary-oriented, and very much toward the mystery and thriller genres, but it's got some very good advice on plot and characters, which I imagine many subsequent books on plot and characters have repeated and reworked in the meantime.

- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel - A really good book to read early on when you're investigating the personal-finance-o-sphere. This is not a cookbook, 'do this' sort of personal finance book, but more a "seriously think about how you THINK about money before you set your goals" kind of book. I've read a lot in this sphere, and still I thought this was an excellent and fresh take, highlighting how some serious introspection can help you avoid serious mistakes.

- How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman - ...meh? I dunno, maybe I've read too much in this area to find this particularly thrilling. Also, it suffers a bit from being too "explain the experiments" to really appeal to the average reader while at the same time just rehashing things that actual informed readers already know. So, it retreads some common ground, I felt.

- Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots - I've now read this book three times, and still love it. A witty, exciting story about a former hench who gets injured by a superhero and uses her considerable data analysis-fu skills to calculate the cost in property damage and human life of deploying superheroes/WMDs for basic crime. This gets her hired by the world's scariest supervillain, and away we go. A neat world mashup of super heroes and corporate drudgery, with a lot to say on exploitation and capitalism. Also I loved the main character's voice and I am WAITING (not so) PATIENTLY for the sequel that's set to come out in a few months, as I really, really want to see how Anna's arc progresses and how her relationship with Leviathan evolves.

Reading now:
- Reading the next Morgan Housel book, The Art of Spending Money. Am less impressed than with The Psychology of Money, mostly because i'm about a third of the way in and it's making the exact same points. It also seems, more than Psychology of Money, focused on the problems of rich people (all the ways super rich people fritter away their money) rather than issues seen by more average folks. I've also started reading Little Bosses Everywhere, which...someone here might have suggested? Interesting book on MLM/pyramid scheme history.

flemmings

Something I don't quite get in Murderbot is the paranoia the general population seems to have about SecUnits going rogue. I say seems because it's possible Murderbot itself is just paranoid. But the theme does figure in its media so I suppose people really have this fear. And why? Here you have what's essentially a security system that's supposed to keep you alive as its main directive. For all intents and purposes, from most people's pov, it's just a superior robot. Getting wound up about what it might do is equivalent to fretting that Siri or Alexa will try to murder you using your smart house. Which is not why I don't have a smart house, or a Siri or an Alexa, but is still ridiculous.

Couldn't sleep last night in spite of exercise in the day. I refrained from checking my clock but will guess it was well after 3 when I got off and was awake at 9:15. Did not go back to sleep and paid for it with chronic semi-headache all day. Or could be the pressure changes from approaching fronts though the real change doesn't happen till tomorrow evening when temperatures plunge yet again, and the current rain turns to snow. House down the street had a crate of National Geographics out front, plus a box of mugs and glasses. I took a crystal wineglass and left the highball glasses, even though my body currently hates wine and I broke my one martini glass. I don't need incentives to drink. But I do hope the guys took those magazines back in, because periodically someone on the neighbourhood FBs will ask if anyone has magazines for school projects.

niqaeli

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Profile

tammylee

Social Links

January 2022

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Fruit Salad for Leftovers by sforzinda

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jan. 26th, 2026 01:14 am

Happy to Be Here *

* for a given value of 'here'

Reading

(no subject)

(no subject)

emotional support spinning

drive-by in current reading

drive-by interview link

(no subject)

extremely silly keyboard mod

(no subject)

(no subject)

I got a new covid shot yesterday.

(no subject)

[fanart] Catlin(s)

One winter's day

(no subject)

US politics

I should export a snow icon from LJ

(no subject)

What We Weading Wednesday

(no subject)

blah blah update blah I am not that exciting atm

Profile

January 2022

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags