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Friday Flora: Tuber Time

They generally seemed pretty happy there. However, a series of calamities have befallen my houseplants over the last 11 months. Think scale, powdery mildew, mealybugs, and wildly fluctuating temperatures and humidity levels...sometimes in the course of a single day. So I was not pleased to find that some as-yet-unknown-to-me pest had started nesting in my string of hearts.
For some reason, I kept not doing anything about it. And for some reason, the string of hearts carried on living and growing quite happily in the face of my neglect. I started to wonder...

Turns out, those little globes aren't insect nests at all, but tubers. How cool--and cool looking--are these things? Better yet, I can clip some of them off, pop them in medium, and have a bunch of new baby string of hearts after they take root.
It's a constant battle between houseplants and books in this residence, and for the time being at least, it looks like the houseplants are in the ascendant.
これで以上です。
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(no subject)
And then also gave me the last brownie cookie for free. And came over and was like: was this okay? And I was like you make GREAT decisions. I make AWFUL ones. You're a star.
So yeah I'm a bad customer but. DSDSIH fdioshfas.
Then came home and had dinner on the balcony and now. I ahve to sleep because they want us IN MAYFAIR AT 11AM WHY.
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the media may not care, but ICE is still running roughshod over LA this July 4th
Okay, so, one of my best friends still has people from her neighbourhood being disappeared. It’s not getting better. It’s getting worse.
I’m not going to ID her here, not with undead pieces of shit like Laura Loomer literally calling for feeding everyone like her to alligators. But and she’s been talking about what’s going on around her, and there are fundraisers for families (via GoFundMe). They’re linked below, but mostly… honestly, I just want to let her talk.
Here are some of her words.
I know it’s drowned out by bigger news, and there’s 10000000 other things going on that require attention, I totally get it, but
ICE raids are still happening daily in Los Angeles and people are getting taken off the street
It’s not really safe for me to walk around, especially in the mornings to get errands done around my neighborhood
so
this is small and just one person, but please consider donating to Reyna. She is a tamale vendor I grew up with. She would laugh with my family and knew us as kids. I’ve never been so heartbroken like this. She literally has never been in any trouble. Her only crime was going to work her regular route selling her food and not being documented.
These are Zapotec (indigenous Mexican) community members who got taken on the first mass day of raids. They’re still trying to reach their goal.
I know this is like moral outrage shit, but like this is my community. It’s personal and it’s still happening and it’s just getting more and more brazen cuz cameras aren’t on them anymore.
They are stopping people based on racial profiling alone, they have taken people even with proof of citizenship in their cars or on their person, and the conditions they throw you into are basically deadly in their mini concentration camps with barely any food/water, no access to medication or hygiene products and not even any proper beds to sleep in.
It feels like the only people being searched for are those with connections here and those are the lucky ones. Dozens of others have no family or relatives here so they get forgotten about.
And no one should be forgotten.
Do what you can.
It should go without saying, but to be clear – neither of these fundraisers are for her. That might matter for some people, so I’m saying it.
Do what you can.
Next big protest day is July 17th. But there are many more things you can and should be doing.
Do what you can.
Everywhere.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
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thursday books travel through time
The Fair-Haired Eckbert, Puss in Boots, The Midsummer Night by Ludwig Tieck, in English translation by various translators, available on Wikisource. I've for a while entertained the extremely aspirational idea of writing historical fantasy about the Mendelssohn siblings, and as part of that project I've been reading fantasy/fairy tales by German Romantic authors whose poems Fanny and Felix put to music. (A previous installment of this was Eichendorff's The Marble Statue, which I never wrote up.) The Fair-Haired Eckbert is one of these, and generally worked for me as a weird fairy tale, despite over-the-top plot twists and being the sort of tragedy where the characters alwasy make the worst possible decisions. But the main thing I got from it was from looking at the song part in German, and learning the excellent word Waldeinsamkeit.
Puss in Boots was recommended by a friend on Discord, after I mentioned reading Tieck: it is a comedy-satirical meta-theatrical adaptation of the fairy tale, published in 1797 but not staged until 1844 (I can see why -- it seems like a hard play to stage! but I think it will be fun to do as a group readaloud.) Tieck is just much more enjoyable when he's not taking himself too seriously.
The Midsummer Night, or Shakespeare and the Fairies is 16-year-old Tieck's Midsummer Night's Dream fanfiction, which he was prevailed to publish late in life, and is pretty good for that. (I wish I knew more about the Mary C. Rumsey who translated it.)
Homer's Daughter, Robert Graves.
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thinking about someone I should not bother thinking about
Once upon a time, I was friends with a guy named Jim. A very, very few of you might know him. Almost all of you won’t.
I walked away some years ago, blocked him on the socials over his support for the fascist, because I said that the fascist’s promises absolutely, positively, literally required American concentration camps, and that’s what he was supporting by supporting the fascist, and I could not abide that…
…and yet, he carried on, saying I was a fool, and that none of it would ever happen.
(I asked him then why did he support someone he insisted was lying to him. I do not remember getting an answer, before I quit.)
So now that we have American concentration camps…
…and now that people with direct access to the fascist are talking about sending literally every American citizen of Latino heritage there to die…

(it will require more concentration camps than that, of course, but that’s a detail which makes no difference)
I wonder…
…has he yet been moved to repentance?
Or is he still a good and solid member of that wretched cult?
It’s immaterial now, of course. We are long past the point where the pebbles’ opinions matter, and crimes already done cannot be undone.
But once in a while, I think of it.
And for a moment – a pointless, irrelevant moment – I still wonder.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
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Films watched Matariki weekend
The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)
Part 1 of my weekend of revenge!! Although the film spent quite a long time pre-revenge, which was a little bit frustrating to me. I’m not watching a Count of Monte Cristo adaptation for Dantès’ pre-Count life.( Read more... )
Ballerina (2025)
Revenge part 2, the John Wick spinoff. I’ve only seen the first and last John Wick movies, so some of the world building stuff may have gone over my head.( Read more... )
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JR Dawson launch party!
My friend J.R. Dawson is launching their second book, The Lighthouse at the End of the World, and I get to be part of the festivities! We'll be at Moon Palace Books at 6:00 p.m. on July 29, having a lovely conversation about this book and the previous book and other stories and life in general, and you can come join in the fun!

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Stories I've liked, 2nd quarter 2025
As Safe As Fear, Beth Cato (Daikajuzine)
In the Shells of Broken Things, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld)
The Name Ziya, Wen-yi Lee (Reactor)
Barbershops of the Floating City, Angela Liu (Uncanny)
Everyone Keeps Saying Probably, Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp)
Lies From a Roadside Vagabond, Aaron Perry (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, Cameron Reed (Reactor)
Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots)
Unbeaten, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Unfinished Architectures of the Human-Fae War, Caroline Yoachim (Uncanny)
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Sunshine Revival #1 (aka, I like journal challenges)

Challenge #1
Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.
Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Okay, well, I'm a fiber artist and I *love* being a fiber artist, but the craft is S-L-O-W. I could knock out another coaster or Other Brother Darryl in about an hour, but I've done +checks Ravelry+ at least 16 of the coasters and at least 8 of Other Brother Darryl. I really don't need to make any more. So instead of crafting something for this challenge, I will talk about my crafting plans for July and beyond.
...though if you want to see crafts I've made, you can check out my Crafting Update tab to see the pretties!
Gnomes
I have two nieces and four nephews, and I started a tradition of making them something for Christmas. It started with crocheted snowflakes, but last year I did small Christmas stockings. This year, I'm planning to make them gnomes, because gnomes are popular and fun. I've bought some yarn, and have a pattern picked out. I really should get started on these NOW, because last year I spent 100 hours crafting in December and it wore me out.
Incidentally, I participate in a crafting tournament on Ravelry called Nerdopolis. We get themes to craft to each round, that we can then tie to our team's Nerdery for a chance to win a prize. Well, one of the themes this month is Orchard Fruits and cherries, which are red, are orchard fruits. I was going to use red for the nieces' gnomes, so that will work nicely. Just need to sit down and do it.
iPad Mini holder
I crocheted some phone holders for me and mom a few months back, and my older sister was admiring mom's and wanted one for her iPad Mini, so I'm going to bang it out this month. It will fit nicely in the Nerdopolis challenge on Communication, as electronic devices such as iPads can be used to communicate with others.
Sophie Scarf
I started this last month for a Nerdopolis challenge but didn't finish it. I'd like to finish in the next two months. It can be submitted to Nerdopolis' Area 51 which is for completed UFOs (UnFinished Objects).
Secret Project
IT'S A SECRET! I hope to finish this month, but since I am designing it myself, there's a lot of ripping back and redoing to get it perfect. Wish me luck!
Motion Picture Mosaic Cardi
This was supposed to be my January project, but them I effed up my shoulder and couldn't really craft for a while. I did start this in January but HAHAHAHAHA NOPE DIDN'T FINISH. It's a huge project that is taking a lot of time. I mean, not only is it a large oversized long cardigan but it's also large in general as I am a large circumference type person. Getting awfully tired of rows of plain HDC... but I do desire this cardi very much, so I'll keep working on it.
The 42 WIPs (and counting)
...yeah, I have a LOT of projects I started in the past and didn't finish. I did just go through my Ravelry projects today and marked some as completed/frogged if I knew I'd never finish them, but there's still a lot that I'd really like to do someday. So how about making a goal to do, um, I think three is a good choice? by the end of the year? I mean, technically all the ones I listed above are WIPs, but let's face it, I have some that have been hibernating for ages (my oldest WIP is from 2008, yikes) so let's pick a few and get them done.