chebe | Network

Today is partly cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/24/25 -- We hacked up most of the remaining brushpile in the parking lot, and some of the older one by the driveway, feeding those into the chipper.

EDIT 12/24/25 -- We moved the new mulch to the mulch pile.

EDIT 12/24/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio. As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysobel posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Miss Manners: I have long been troubled by the carol “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” specifically the intimation that if we don’t give the uninvited guests their figgy pudding, they “won’t go.”

How are we to address this request? I don’t want to be ungrateful for their wishes, but think that their insistence is a bit beyond what is considered polite and reasonable. Can you advise how to proceed?

What was that? Miss Manners couldn’t quite hear you over the ruckus made by the geese a-laying, the calling birds, the French hens and the turtledoves. The partridge, fortunately, appears to have passed out under the pear tree.

Current Mood: amused

pensnest

My labours of yesterday—cooked a spiced apple cake, and a lemon possett flan, made several sandwiches and decorated—and today—made GF plain scones, Cherry scones, and Cheese and Chorizo scones, put cream cheese+horseradish and smoked salmon onto GF crackers—were well rewarded by a mostly-empty table and smiling (and slightly groany) people. We had Afternoon Tea for lunch, and it was very nice.

And now, my crocheted llama has mysteriously acquired a Santa hat.

andrewducker

Christmas Eve dog walk
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

sabotabby

Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Well, we're a third of the way in! After coughing up blood repeatedly for the last half a dozen chapters and blaming it on acclimatization to the altitude, our feckless hero has finally seen a doctor (at the TB sanatorium!) and gotten himself formally diagnosed. So now he's stuck up the mountain indefinitely. He's very chill about it though, as the lifestyle—five meals a day, cheap accommodations, lectures, and interesting conversations—is way more fun than going to work. Also he has fallen for another patient, Madame Clavdia Chauchat (great cat name if you have a new adoptee in your life), who despite being Russian, married, uncouth, and outside of his social class, reminds him of a boy he had a crush on as a kid. Our bisexual king Hans Castorp!

Of course I can't help but read modern interpretations into this, and the parallels to the disability community online, the relief of diagnosis after you've experienced mysterious weird symptoms and then connecting with other people who are quietly suffering. Hans Castorp would have loved the internet.

Can a book be both boring and engrossing? Yes.

andrewducker

1. The seven reasons why reversing Brexit won't happen (at least neither quickly nor easily): (tags:UK Europe doom trade )

rmc28

Turns out one of my uni hockey friends has a long-standing history channel on YouTube, and of course he made a video about ice hockey history. I think I'd have liked it even if I didn't know the creator, enjoy:

Watch on YouTube

dine

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ysabetwordsmith

Everyone needs contact comfort sometimes. Not everyone has ample opportunities for this in facetime. So here is a chance for a cuddle party in cyberspace. Virtual cuddling can help people feel better.

We have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the February 2025

crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from

dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "Experimentation" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

sonia

In August 2024, I got a heat pump and switched my heat source from gas to electric.

PG&E has an arcane cost structure where not only do they charge more for electricity between certain hours (4-9pm for my rate plan) but they also have a baseline allowance and charge significantly more for usage over baseline. Neither the contractor nor my neighbor with a heat pump advised me that I needed to call PG&E and tell them I had changed heat sources to change my baselines, so I overpaid a lot for electricity last winter.

I was aware that I was paying a lot even though the heat pump wasn't maintaining temperature. I asked the contractor. I asked my neighbor. Neither mentioned the baseline amounts.

PG&E sent me a message earlier this fall saying I might pay less on a different rate plan, and when I called them (Oct 9, for my records), I found out about notifying them I now had electric heat. One agent told me the was refundable as much as 3 years retroactively, but it turns out he was blowing smoke, and it isn't. :-(

The new rate plan is even more complicated and I still had a really high bill this month despite not keeping the place very warm (and I have double pane windows and everything!), so I spent a long time on the phone with an agent today digging into the numbers and figured out the new rate plan is actually slightly more expensive than just having the right baseline amount, so I'm switching back.

*sigh*. I guess some lessons are just expensive. Looks like they instituted this whole baseline thing right around when I moved back in May 2022, which explains why I wasn't aware of it before, and maybe I missed both the existing customer education and the new customer education.

( Last year's missing baseline credits )

I'm continuing to send updates to the contractor who installed the heat pump system, which is under warranty for 3 years. At the end of last winter, he replaced the thermostat, and a control board in the downstairs indoor unit where he cut a jumper that it didn't make sense to cut. Now he says he's going to replace the whole indoor unit, and install one that's more powerful. It's supposed to arrive early-mid January. We'll see if that fixes the problem. He will also have to replace all the coolant, so if he had the wrong amount in there, that will also fix that problem. I suppose if that doesn't help then he replaces the outdoor unit. One step at a time...

ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the February 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

mama_kestrel and

see_also_friend. It also fills the "Violent Behavior" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

gothfvck and

see_also_friend. It also fills the "Resist Oppression" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

jadelennox posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Miss Manners: Several years ago, a divorced woman exactly my age moved in next door. I liked her very much and tried to become friends with her. ( Read more... )

source

nuh_s posting in

fandomcalendar

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wychwood

Christmas is here aaaaaaah I am somehow not mentally prepared for Christmas Eve to be tomorrow.

However, all my preparations are sorted except for the things I need to do on Christmas morning, and I have done the tragic washing up so my house is ready for me to mostly abandon it for a couple of days.

Choir went pretty well - our Christmas concerts have had real issues with falling audience numbers for the last few years; we used to sell out four or five concerts, but lately it's been more like "two or three half-full". So this year they obviously decided to try something new, and we did three different, although overlapping, concerts with different vibes - two were basically sold out, and the third was all but the top tier, which only had about 50 people in it, but was probably still better turnout than any of the concerts last year. So it looks like that has worked, and we can expect more of that in the future.

We did a lot more "popular" music - White Christmas, Mariah Carey, the JoBros, Shakin' Stevens... I'm kind of torn, because I'm not really good at that sort of thing, and I'm not really sure why you would want to come and see us do "Like It's Christmas" rather than a rock or pop choir, whereas we can do you a genuinely excellent rendition of O Magnum Mysterium or Stars or something like that which plays to our strengths. But the audiences really seemed to enjoy it, and most of the songs were quite fun to sing. And we did do Darius Battiwalla's arrangement of "O Holy Night", which is gloriously over-the-top (the bit where the fortissimo orchestra drops out from under the chorus!).

Our conductor kept encouraging us to "bop" while singing the more fun pieces, but I really wasn't sold - the community choir were doing something similar, and frankly I thought it looked messy and distracting no matter how often he claimed it was essential for the music. I think you do actually need to do properly synchronised movement if you want it to look good (NB: I absolutely do not want to do properly synchronised movement either! this is not why I am in a choir!).

Tomorrow I'm going for brunch with Miss H and then over to my parents', probably to help with last-minute prep before the rest of the family arrive! I won't see them, though, because I'll be off to church before they get there. That will be a Christmas Day treat.

pensnest

Well. Almost there. I'm not cooking Christmas dinner this year—Bun and MRBun2B have invited us there—but tomorrow I am producing Afternoon Tea for them, plus BIL, Boy, and MrBun2B's parents. The most concise way I have found of referring to this couple is "Bun's in-laws", though they are not that at present. Beast feels there should be a word for this relationship, but I don't think there is. Am I wrong?

*

Have spent an hour or so arranging holly (we have a tree with berries!), ivy, acuba japonica and white lilies (still in bud) to decorate the dining room. Very casual arrangements, but I like the effect. Also very economical, as all the greenery was culled from the garden and we only needed to buy two bunches of lilies. If any of you is worried about the cat, I can promise there will be *no* difficulty keeping her out of the dining room, when it is filled with People. She can have a nice, peaceful Christmas Day to recover.

*

Final chorus engagement for the year was at the Hamlet Centre last Friday. Now that the chorus is so much younger, a large proportion of members are working during the day )we used to have more pensioners and housewives) so there were only five of us, but we duly turned up. This particular version of the Hamlet Centre is for young adults with various disabilities. In the past we've also sung at the children's version, which is usually delightful because at least one little girl always got up and danced as we sang. I wasn't expecting a dancer this time, but I was wrong! There were a couple of kids there, and the little girl danced!

With only five of us—three Leads and two Baritones—there wasn't a lot we could do in terms of Christmas repertoire, but there was a recording of various Christmas songs which we sang along with, and we did manage to throw in Silent Night, White Christmas and the Carol of the Bells acappella. I harmonised happily as the mood took me.

It's a fairly unique experience. It's always kinda bizarre and quite joyous. I didn't take part last year, for reasons of New Hip, and remembered all over again why it is a good thing to do. I think the three newcomers among us were all hooked!

simplyn2deep posting in

1word1day

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Reindeer (noun)
rein·deer [reyn-deer]

noun
1. any of several large deer of the genus Rangifer, of northern and arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, both male and female of which have antlers.

Compare meaning
How does reindeer compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

reindeer vs. deer
caribou vs. reindeer

Origin: First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English raynder(e), from Old Norse hreindȳri, equivalent to hreinn “reindeer” + dȳr “animal” (cognate with deer )

Example Sentences
It's also got a proper tree with decorations, there's a Rudolf reindeer toy and they've put some thought into all the splashes of red.
From BBC

"The trip meant so much to us. Leighton loved Lapland and enjoyed all the activities like visiting Santa's post office, Mrs Claus' house and seeing the reindeer," he added.
From BBC

Animal activists are calling for a ban on live reindeer events this Christmas, claiming their evidence shows serious welfare concerns.
From BBC

Let the reindeer chow cool before serving — or packing.
From Salon

A sign states that “Santa is feeding the reindeer.”
From Los Angeles Times

brainwane

looking forward to the next episode of Pluribus

starting to read the scifi mystery Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

making note of the upcoming Grolier Club exhibition on the mechanization of printing: "The Second Printing Revolution: Invention of Mass Media", starting January 14

thinking about whether I could make some use of the new Rx Inspector tool from Pro Publica

spreading word of the Otherwise Award's year-end fundraising campaign to celebrate scifi/fantasy/genre fiction that expands or explores our notions of gender (I'm on the board)

teaching activists how to use Signal features -- usernames, disappearing messages, nicknames, etc. -- to preserve privacy and improve convenience

listening to episodes of KEXP's Runcast (music) and an Australian guy's One Man, One Hammock (rambling monologues) as I do chores

playing an ad hoc guessing game with my spouse where I look up random records on the Guinness world records website and ask him to guess, e.g., how tall the tallest chocolate fountain is

dithering on whether to write a year-end retrospective for my blog

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chebe

December 2025

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Curious thoughts

Network

Birdfeeding

Literal Christmas

he knows if you've been bad or good

Photo cross-post

Reading Wednesday

Interesting Links for 24-12-2025

Ice hockey history

westward leading, still proceeding

Cuddle Party

Poem: "The Right Combination of Features"

PSA: California PG&E baseline allowances

Poem: "No Matter How Morally Unworthy"

Poem: "Happy Instruments of Salvation"

Dear Miss Manners:Is my neighbor my new bestie or a frigid hag?

Platonic Rare Pair Flash

Star Wars: Clone Exchange, Valentines Exchange

and bunting in the red town hall says "Merry Christmas to you all"

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Tuesday word: Reindeer

some things I'm currently doing

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December 2025

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