Orange cats are a special kind of crazy. But we love them.
Every fluffy feline has their own unique purrsonality, every cat owner can tell you that. But orange cats… well, orange cats are a unique breed. They come with a hunger for both food and chaos. They are some of the most loving, snuggly cats we've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and they are also the craziest. One minute, they'll be purring like a race car on your chest, and the next, they'll be bouncing off the walls and trying to eat their food bowl. Not the food inside the food bowl, but the food bowl itself. It's a wonder how these blissfully brain-cell-less babies ever survived in the wild.
And where there is one orange, there are usually more. One rescuer and their friend found a mama cat and her four kittens outside, and immediately brought them to safety indoors. Like most feline fans, they fell head over heels for the cute kitties, with a special connection to the purely orange one. His adorably silly shenanigans made the rescuer fall deeper and deeper in love, until they decided that they were going to keep him, and name him 'Dibbles'. A purrfectly derpy name for a purrfectly derpy cat.
These kittens are still very young, so we're not sure this rescuer knows exactly what he's getting into, but who are we to stand in the way of true love? Don't tell him that it's going to get worse before it gets better… it's all part of the fun of being owned by a clementine-colored cat.
One late-night walk home came with a tiny follower.
A late-night walk home from the bar turned into four years with a cat. Back in 2022, this tiny scraggly kitten started following this couple down the street around 2am and just kept going. He'd disappear behind trees, then suddenly come running back to catch up again. After 10 or 15 minutes of that, it stopped feeling random.
The couple made a deal. If the kitten followed them all the way to the doorstep, he could come inside. Then he actually did it. Once he was indoors, they realized how rough of shape he was in too. Small, covered in fleas, scruffy looking, definitely not some well-kept outdoor cat just wandering around for fun.
They did the responsible part first. Checked for a chip, thought about taking him to the SPCA, looked at all the normal options. But after a few days of hanging out with him, that idea clearly disappeared fast. Three days was all it took for him to stop being the kitten they found and turn into their cat.
Now he's fluffy, healthy, and fully settled in. The little kitten that kept running after them down the sidewalk ended up finding exactly where he was going to stay.
Today's lunch: as there were potatoes left from last week, made a gratin provencale sorta, served with slowcooked purple sprouting broccoli (this really needed even longer slow-cooking, was still fairly al dente) and padron peppers.
Theme Prompt: #300 – Ceremony Title: Masters and Ceremonies Fandom: Original Rating/Warnings: None Bonus: Yes Word Count: 464 Summary: A software development team's reaction to new Agile processes and ceremonies
Title: Unsettling Fandom: Babylon 5 Author: badly_knitted Characters: Londo. Rating: PG Written For: Challenge 500: Amnesty 50, using Challenge 483: Shiver. Spoilers/Setting: In the Kingdom of the Blind. Summary: For the first time, Londo finds the Royal Palace an unsettling place to be. Disclaimer: I don’t own Babylon 5, or the characters. They belong to J. Michael Straczynski. A/N: Double drabble.
Late in May as the light lengthens toward summer the young goldfinches flutter down through the day for the first time to find themselves among fallen petals cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows of the garden beside the old house after a cold spring with no rain not a sound comes from the empty village as I stand eating the black cherries from the loaded branches above me saying to myself Remember this
I've been struggling with writer's block for the past couple of weeks, but I'm delighted to report that I am back on my bullshit.
Title: Twice Shy Fandom:The Goes Wrong Show Rating: 14 Pairing: Robert/Chris Wordcount: 3,900 Summary: “Ah,” Robert says. “I may have left out a crucial detail. You do know I’m a vampire, don’t you?”
AO3 Link | Small Distraction (250 words) by Merfilly Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Deanna Troi & Lwaxana Troi Characters: Lwaxana Troi, Deanna Troi Additional Tags: Motherhood Summary:
Lwaxana is trying to work.
Lwaxana Troi kept a perfect serenity around her as she spoke with the Tellarite Ambassador, despite the absolute mischief rampant in her daughter as Deanna ran through the garden party, evading her nanny of the day.
Said nanny was possibly having a very strong nervous breakdown in the midst of trying desperately to acquire the toddler.
"Would it be easier if you corralled her?" the man asked, with his voice actually full of understanding.
"If you do not mind, Ambassador Thek." She gave him a gracious smile, recognizing him now as a fellow parent. She turned her attention to Deanna amidst the legs of various noteworthy people. For the most part, people were accepting the disruption with grace, even amusement.
Little One? Mother is working, and you are causing a distraction that is not helping me.
Deanna stopped, her eyes peering across the way to her, before summoning all the dignity that a small child could.
"I am sorry," she said, projecting contrition to those who were not mind blind. Her nanny added a quiet apology to the pair closest, and scooped Deanna up to carry her back to the house.
"Ambassador Troi, she will be a credit with such fearlessness," Thek said once Lwaxana had refocused on him.
She gave a small smile. "I give her what freedom I can, that is safe for her, so she can explore."
"Children have a way of pushing their safe spaces ever outward," Thek said, nodding sagely.
Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today’s post is with Whatsit, who volunteers as a Chair in training for the Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) and a Tag Wrangler.
How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
As a tag wrangler, I make sure that the fandoms I wrangle have properly canonized tags, which helps users find works that have the characters, relationships, tropes, and themes they’re looking for. I fully and completely believe that the tagging system on AO3 is practically one of the modern wonders of the world, and I’m really pleased to be able to do my small part in contributing to it.
My other role is working for the Policy & Abuse committee, where we respond to reports of Terms of Service violations. Anyone who’s ever spent time on an unmoderated comments section somewhere knows the importance of moderation in keeping a site usable and enjoyable, and PAC works (mostly) behind the scenes to make sure that’s the case for AO3.
What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
I try to spend at least an hour or so per day on PAC work, since some of it is time-sensitive and has deadlines attached. This often involves working with tickets that have been sent in about violations, but sometimes it means working on documentation updates or helping to train new volunteers on the committee.
I usually also do at least one big tag wrangling session per week, during which I get caught up with wrangling the tags in my fandoms. I really like putting music on and settling in for a few hours (or more) of wrangling, so this setup works really well for me.
What made you decide to volunteer?
I have a background in book indexing and a particular interest in categorization and taxonomy, so as soon as I found out that tag wranglers were a thing on AO3, I definitely wanted to be one! It sounded like the kind of thing that would be right up my alley (and it was). On a broader level, I think AO3 is one of the best things going on the Internet, in terms of creating a space where people can freely share their fanworks without fear of the content purges that have plagued many other sites. With censorship encroaching on so many other spaces, I think what AO3 stands for is more important than ever. I really believe in the philosophy of the site and I’m glad to be a part of it.
What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
Time management! I’m on two separate committees and I also have a day job and a fairly active family life, which is a lot to juggle. But I’ve had success setting boundaries for myself that keep me from over-committing or burning out. I find that setting specific times during which I’ll do specific tasks not only keeps that task from eating up my entire day (which either wrangling or PAC work could otherwise easily do) but also allows me to really focus on that task during the allotted time.
What fannish things do you like to do?
I’m an active fic writer and I participate in quite a few multi-fandom fic exchanges. I find that having an external deadline is great for motivating me to actually finish a fic, something I was historically not great at before doing exchanges. I also hang out on a couple of fandom discords and have been known to go to the occasional convention. And, of course, I spend entirely too much of my free time reading vast amounts of fic.
Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you’d like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.
Being a cat mom is just motherhood with more fur, fewer boundaries, and extra judgment.
Being a cat mom means living with a tiny roommate who contributes nothing financially and somehow runs the place. You buy the food, clean the bathroom, provide entertainment, and still get yelled at for being five minutes late with dinner. The power dynamic is not in your favor.
You'll lose arguments to a creature that weighs ten pounds. You will sit in an uncomfortable position because moving would disturb a nap. You will spend money on a fancy toy only to watch a cat choose a crumpled receipt instead. This is normal.
There's also the emotional side of being a cat mom, which includes praising someone for using the litter box, worrying because they sneezed once, and showing people photos they did not ask to see. You start saying things like "she's in a mood today". At some point, your cat's preferences begin shaping household decisions.
There's the classic cat mom contradiction: being lovingly obsessed with a pet that acts mildly offended by your existence. You provide warmth, snacks, and devotion, and in return get stared at while being judged from a bookshelf. Still, one slow blink or surprise cuddle and you forget every 4 a.m. wake-up call. Cat moms understand the arrangement is unfair, but nobody is trying to renegotiate it.
I found this in a shop near Ballachulish and thought it would be fun to read another book about the Appin Murder, so here we go. James Hunter is uniquely well-placed to write such a book, being both a professional historian and originally from Duror; in the introduction to this book he describes playing as a child in the ruins of Acharn farmhouse and being told by his older neighbours that someone called James of the Glen once lived there, and then reading Kidnapped and being thrilled to find places he knew well in real life in a book.
Kill Your Darlings by Lou Wilham was awesome! It's Book 3 of Hunters of Ironport, an achillean story inspired by Buffy/Faith.
This is my favourite series in the Bay of the Dead Verse. This tome has a major crossover with Witches of Moondale, a minor one with Fae of Eventide, and introduces Bat who, as I guessed, will be the protagonist of History Will Call Them Tombmates. Here's the full Reading Order.
There's major m/m/m, where one of them is a trans man, and minor f/f.
I'm not sure when it happened, exactly - maybe sometime in middle school? - but I'll always remember the day Mom told me I was skipping school, and we were going shopping instead.
We spent the morning driving around to Goodwill and various thrift shops, trying on clothes, singing along to the car radio, and later stopping at Subway for lunch - which I remember being a treat, because we got the cookies for dessert.
(This is me around chocolate chip cookies. ALWAYS.)
We didn't talk about school. We didn't talk about my friends or grades or any of those awkward teenage "body-changing" topics. We just told each other which tops looked best, chatted about nothing, laughed, and had fun.
It was the first time I realized Mom wasn't just my mom, she was also my friend.
Mom was an RN while I was growing up, which meant my brother and I got zero sympathy for our scraped knees and boo-boos. Don't get me wrong; Mom was an expert at patching us up - but if we wanted a hearty "You poor thing!", then Dad was the place to go.
I later learned Mom was working nights in the ICU then, and routinely saw the kind of pain and grief I can't even fathom, because she came home and smiled and hugged us just the same.
It was terrible. But Mom loves terrible kid movies, and to this day she'll request we see whatever the latest animated or G-rated flick is, no matter how ominous the reviews, and then she'll laugh and gasp and have so much fun that you'll wind up loving it, too.
In my teens Mom was in a car accident that prevented her from ever working as a nurse again. She had to wear a neck brace for ages, and later had a surgery to wire her jaw shut for a while. Then she got braces... at the same time *I* had braces.
People kept mistaking us for sisters, which Mom REALLY liked, but I just found embarrassing - especially that time an older friend of mine hit on her... with me standing right there.
Today my folks live in a different state, but I'm happy to say they are still my friends. We visit often, and even go to Dragon Con together, where Mom loves dressing up steampunk - with outfits she still puts together from the thrift store.
Lately Mom likes to video chat and show me all the crafts she's teaching during her volunteer work at the local retirement home. And now she and Dad have joined a Harley Davidson group/club/gang(?), so they spend weekends taking long rides together decked out in the most, um, fascinating fashions.
(I could have gone my whole life without seeing my mother in leather chaps, you guys. MY WHOLE LIFE.)
Mom's the most servant-hearted person I know, and has seen and endured a lot of pain, though you'd never know it. Somehow she's managed to keep a sense of wonder and whimsy through life - something I try hard to emulate. She raised me to love reading and Star Trek and fantasy and fun, and taught me that when the going gets rough, you turn up the music and sing along extra loud - and off-key. ;)
For my folks' 40th anniversary a few years back, we sent them to Disney World - mostly for Mom - and I'll never forget her delight.
She's the big kid who makes you remember how great life really is sometimes - even when life really isn't so great. The best moms are like that. And days like today help us remember to thank our moms, and be grateful for the things we just didn't know how to appreciate when we were younger.
So happy Mother's Day, Mom. Thanks for showing me that when I thought you were being the most embarrassing, you were really showing me how to be the best adult. I love you, I'm proud of you, and I hope we can go shopping again someday soon.
PS - This is a first-time-ever cross-post from my other blog, Epbot. Same text, different pictures. So if you'd like to see the version with pics of my mom in steampunk costumes & on motorcycles & hugging awkward young Jen, click here.
*****
Oh and did you forget to send your Mom/Grandma/favorite parental personage a card today? Because you could make it up to them with a card that transforms into a bouquet:
Elmore Leonard is one of those writers who occupies the demilitarized zone between genre writing and high literature.
I don't read him myself, but I take his Rules For Writing very seriously! Particularly #10: Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
Except... How do you know which parts readers tend to skip? Different readers skip different parts, right? Plus when you reread a book, the parts you skipped the first time may be the parts you linger over the second time around! It's so confusing!
Anyway, Elmore Leonard's adage was much on my mind as I labored on the Work in Progress yesterday. Did I write three sentences? Maybe. I am describing Flavia's reaction to Neal's death, which she learns through a phone call from Mimi. The problem is that I've already described Mimi's phone call to Flavia—as imagined by Grazia. As imagined amusingly by Grazia!
Grazia is an amusing character.
Flavia is not.
But the novel's structure alternates between points of view from different characters. Flavia's POV focuses on the nitty-gritty of maintaining a poly relationship, plus what it feels like to be super-rich and embarrassed about it, so it's not without its own fascination.
Still.
I have to set up Neal dropping dead and all the busy work that entails for Flavia.
Is there new information I can include about the phone call in its second evocation? I mean, how would you feel if you got a phone call telling you the person you loved most in the world was suddenly gone?
This has never happened to me, so I'm a bit at a loss.
###
Apart from struggling and failing to get anywhere on the Work In Progress, I made money and did a mini-Taylor Hackford film festival, An Officer and a Gentleman and Against All Odds.
It was a rainy day, so I didn't have to torture myself: Really, you should go outside and do something useful.
Against All Odds stars my movie boyfriend, Jeff Bridges. We have grown old together, and I must say, my health has maintained considerably better than his! In his youth, Jeff Bridges was the kind of adorably blurry, blue-eyed blond boy I lusted after—not dumb exactly but not intellectual in the way that I (for better or worse!) am intellectual. Very physical. Our bond would be sexual! Very wholesome athletic sex, lotsa orgasms but lite on kink.
Jeff Bridges was never more adorable than he was in Against All Odds—unless it was in Starman (be still my beating heart!)
I mean, don't get me wrong! Jeff Bridges could also be louche (c.f. The Fabulous Baker Boys and the brilliant, under-rated Cutter's Way), but that was a Sydney Carton kinda thing, doncha know, the romantic who's so-oo-ooo sensitive he has to hide it behind a wall of cynicism.
And the first part of Against All Odds is actually quite good, though it falls apart into total plot incoherence at the halfway mark. I mean, Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward having hot, sweaty, naked sex in Chichén Itzá! Does it get any better? I believe they actually got permission to film in Chichén Itzá!
Of particular interest to me was the way Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward kissed, taking nibbles of each other's lips. This is not my preferred way of kissing, which involves mouth flowering into mouth deep soul kissing, but I figure in my next reincarnation, I will teach Jeff Bridges how to kiss properly—which is something I had to do with my first husband! I mean, it's ridiculous to give up on someone just because their sexual rhythms don't match yours; teach them your sexual rhythms!
Anyway, it was a fun day. Guiltless sloth!
But today, it is not raining, and moreover, temps are supposed to hit 70°, so I must harken out to my garden and figure out the soil sieve situation.
One pregnant cat roaming a job site turned into seven new employees.
A woman heard meowing from the office at her work, so she took a ladder and looked in the ceiling. Lo and behold, what did she see? Seven hungry kittens! There had been a stray outside the office the last few weeks just roaming around. No one knew she was pregnant until this miraculous birth. The woman takes it under her own responsibility to find furrever homes for all seven babies. She already has two cats at home, so her plan right now is to keep them at the office as a temporary shelter.
Read Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, a memoir of her time - as a young, desperate aspiring violinist - playing violin in a fake orchestra that toured the U.S. (and, briefly, China) while "doing the Milli Violini", i.e., the instrumental version of lip-synching to a recorded CD. It's also a memoir of the cultural shift/dissonance of post-9/11 America ("The desire for postdisaster control was so strong in the years [Hindman] worked for the Ensemble, the years 2002-2006, that even the slightest sound of a pennywhistle was soothing") and of what she describes as life in the body, a theme encompassing everything from the way that being A Violin Player was an escape from and defense against the pressures of being A Teenage Girl, to the panic disorder ("disaster-brain") she developed while on the aforementioned U.S. tour. Engagingly written; had a lot going on in a relatively slim memoir - shuffling between circa-1990s backstory, the circa-2000s "main plot", and contextual/reflective interludes like a deck of cards - but it worked.
Read Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth, queer coming-of-age in early 1990s rural Ireland; I liked this a lot but don't have much to say about it. Would recommend if you enjoy intense teen girl friendships-to-lovers, complicated relationships with one's mother, Catholic guilt, and slow-burn emotional/personal growth.
* Actually finished both on Saturday, after starting on Friday and Thursday, respectively ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
After spending the winter along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Gray Catbirds are back in Vermont!
They're named for their characteristic nasal "mreeennnh!" call that sounds like a cat impatient for dinner. They're related to mockingbirds and can also mimic other birds' songs and miscellaneous noises, but unlike mockingbirds which tend to perform an imitation several times in a row clearly, Gray Catbirds do a chattery stream-of-consciousness jumble of bits and pieces of different things.
The all-gray plumage with a darker cap makes them easy to recognize. In this photo you can also see a glimpse of the rust-red undertail coverts. Males and females look alike. Their bills are black; this one's looks mottled because it's got suet on it. We've had two in the yard lately which are both very into the suet, and they will fly in and rudely body-check the other one off the feeder if they feel like it.
Perhaps it is the first step
across a dark, yawning chasm
or the feeling of hanging, lightly,
surrounded by nothing
(to catch you),
surrounded by everything
(to catch you),
leading you to focus on the breath
rushing through your lungs,
the landscape, flowing
through your bloodstream. ( Read more... )
+ 🗣️ New Aldous Harding album. I repeat: new Aldous Harding album.
+ Retreated to my bedroom for a quiet space to finally get a post out. Brough my holiday incense leftovers and now everything smells amazing. There's just nothing else that smells this good to me.
+ Finally did one voluntary social call since coming home. Met my good friend K, the one I didn't get around to last free trip. It's always such a lovely time. Miracles of miracles, it was actually sunny and warm that day. (we've had two full days with white on the ground. This morning greeted me with a hail storm. ~MAY~)
We may be meeting up next week so I can finally see her new house. There's a bunch of springy lambs visible from her window!
+ Friend J got a new Guinea pig and is sending me all sorts of cute pictures and videos 🥰
+ The online store with the biggest selection of tarot decks and books announced they were shutting down, so whups there goes another shopping spree. I really did want to put a whole lot more time into my new decks first, but that's how it goes. I'll finally have my hands on the supremely queer and joyful Supernova Tarot though!! Absolute delight in a box, cannot wait.As well as Kate Forsyth's Plant Oracle. I'm just really craving florals and animals lately. But mostly it was new books, including a year long work book. So that'll be interesting to tackle. Structure would do me good.
+ I've officially sent in my resignation at work. Wish I could roll around in relief, but of course all I'm feeling is overwhelmed and stressed about having to find something new. Still better than the toxic soup I was drowning in.
Turned to my tarot for a small soothing work reading.
Ah yes, 8 of Swords, my second in line stalker card. Confronting inner barriers, awareness of self-limiting beliefs, a shift of perspective for potential liberation. And Death, the end of one phase and the beginning of another. Embracing inevitable changes. As the foundation I pulled The Hierophant: spiritual wisdom, tradition, embodying guidance and mentorship.
The next couple of days I did three one card pulls, and well, let's just say [it's the same picture dot jpeg].
small a seed already has the energy to begin and then takes time in the dark underground, supported and nourished by the soil, the matrix. to have a foundation, to root.
•
Peppermint can dispel the mental chatter that prevents us from being present. They can allow our minds to be cool and clear. Peppermint offers perspective on how we see ourselves and how we engage with the world, showing us a way through the many layers of selves around which we build stories.
Peppermint is an excellent ally for transition.
•
No amount of clarity or visualization is possible without distancing oneself from the noise of the world. It can be challenging to take ourselves out of the flood of distractions we deal with minute by minute.
Seek out a place of stillness to hear what you need; time to meditate.
All in all a clear message. To honor it, after I'm done here I'll be brewing myself a cup of peppermint tea and tidying a bit, followed by a bath using a small Aromatgerapy Associates bottle I know contains peppermint. Then hop in bed with the window open to feel the breeze and do a body scan meditation (extremely likely to be followed by a nap heh). Bonus, this matches up perfectly with the exercise for my current Embodied Ecosystems Tarot task.
+ Now, you'd think I was done playing with my cards? lol nope. I just recently received The Intuitive Goddess Tarot, and decided to do their seven card chakra spread. ( Sparing you all my card blather. )
+ We're still open for offerings and requests at 3W4DW Tarot Reading, for anybody who's been thinking about joining in.
+ If you've ever wanted to give paid time a try on Dreamwidth, or would just like to top up your account, please do put your name in the hat. Multiple donors have signed on, we'd just like you to get something nice while supporting Dreamwidth ❤️
+ Tonight I'll play some more with the Star Wars Icon Pass It On. Stop by and drop some images for us to play with and make some shiny icons ✨
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