Left the house!

Jan. 25th, 2026 02:10 pm
cupcake_goth: (Default)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth
[personal profile] minim_calibre very kindly came over yesterday to help me run some errands AND slowly pootle around two thrift stores. There wasn’t anything worthwhile at Value Village, which is sadly becoming the norm. Well, there were some dresses that could have been turned into something interesting, but I stuck to my clothing no-buy. PRAISE ME. 

The other thrift store was The Discovery Shop, which is a small nonprofit for the American Cancer Society. It’s a few blocks from my house, which means that once I’m healthy I need to make more of an effort to walk up there on a regular basis. Because, as with most smaller, charity-specific thrift stores, the selection is much better. I bought two pieces of jewelry: a crystal necklace with an antique skeleton key pendant (minim handed it to me, saying, “This belongs to you”), and a vintage belled bracelet, because I want to return to jingling when I walk. I pined over a huge blown glass candelabra with multiple arms, but acknowledged that I ha no place to put it. But my god, it was stunning.

I learned that both The Discovery Shop and Value Village have “senior discount days” on Tuesdays, and that “senior” is 55+! Time to schedule a regular thrifting day!

All of the excitement of leaving the house took its toll, however, and I’m absolutely exhausted today. Plus I’m starting a new round of different antibiotics, because my symptoms returned once I finished the first round. Thank goodness that my preferred urgent care clinic offers telehealth appointments.

Updated forcast

Jan. 22nd, 2026 09:50 pm
brickhousewench: (snow)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
Ryan Hall Y’all is forecasting 14 - 19 inches of snow for Boston over Sunday through Monday.

He's still predicting a foot of snow for my hometown of Lexington, KY. That's pretty historic snow for them, we had 15 inches during the Blizzard of 1978 (for context, that's the entire winter's worth of snowfall in a single storm...). And really that storm was the only time I remember getting more than an inch when I lived in KY. Interestingly, when I googled it looks like climate change has been bringing more snow to Lexington than we got when I was a kid.

Ryan Hall Y’all is forecasting 16 inches of snow for Lowell over Sunday through Monday.

Weather Underground is forecasting 14 inches of snow for Lowell over Sunday through Monday.

Dance video

Jan. 22nd, 2026 06:24 pm
brickhousewench: (Love - Shakespeare In Love)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
This Hamnet cast dance video is delightful.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTvQI7ljx2Y/

Five Random Things Makes a Post

Jan. 21st, 2026 09:34 pm
brickhousewench: oh look a chicken (chicken)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
Still busy at work. I had three hours of meetings today before lunch. And we had a patch release today, so I had two sets of Release Notes to get updated and published. I also did the first Helm Charts release in a month to clear out the backlog (19!) of updates we’ve had in the past month. And then, because we had had the patch release, I did another Helm Charts release to update the software version in the charts. Between catching up on Slack and my inbox, and another meeting in the evening, that kept me busy all day.

*****

There was a lot of talk about the weather at work today. One of my coworkers shared a video to the "Location - USA” Slack channel from his favorite online meteorologist. (a guy out of Pikeville, KY who goes by Ryan Hall Y’all) I haven’t watched a meteorologist in *yoinks*, but I watched his forecast. He’s talking about a historic storm, with an ice storm stretching across Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee that could drop up to an INCH of ice, depending on where the storm ends up hitting. And then, after the ice storm takes out trees and possibly takes out power, the temps are going to drop into the negative numbers. He’s warning people to prepare for multiple days without power. With temperatures below zero.

And FEMA probably will not come to help these people. This could get really bad.

Depending on the model, he’s talking about 12 - 16 inches of snow in Boston. New York City could get 18 inches. Philly could get 19 inches. My hometown of Lexington, KY could get a foot of snow!

*****

Over in the docs team Slack channel, one of my coworkers in Texas quipped that he was off to panic buy! BBIAB. At the end of a pretty lengthy thread with various coworkers in various parts of the country talking about what they were doing or not doing to prepare for the storm, we ended with this exchange:

Johnny “Now y'all got me starting to believe the hype. I may have to head to the book store after work and stock up for the storm.”

Fiona “I like that your version of stocking up for an ice storm is to get more books”

*****
Despite the fact that we just talked on Monday, Mom called me again tonight.

She’d heard a story on NPR about An Unlikely Story Bookstore in Plainville MA, which is owned by the guy who wrote Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And she thought it might be a nice place to check out if I wanted to take a roadtrip some weekend.

And she also mentioned that home prices in Plainville are very reasonable.

Because of course she did.

*****
Speaking of weather… Market Day at BIrka is this weekend. Right now the forecast is a high of 11 degrees. But a friend shared a screenshot on FB of the wind chill forecast, and it might be as bad as “feels like” -25 to -30 degrees at 8:00 on Saturday morning. If the wind chill is that bad, I may bail on Birka and stay home. I can dress for cold weather, but wind chills that far below zero are frickin dangerous.

Frivolous dithering

Jan. 21st, 2026 12:08 pm
cupcake_goth: (Default)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth
I'm starting to seriously consider selling my VINTAGE Fluevog Swordfish shoes and boots. I love them. LOVE. I never wear them, because even tho' the 3" heel are wide and sturdy, my back has made it pretty clear that those shoes and boots are not made for walking. Not for me.  

I'm tempted to hold onto the boots so I can use them as vases for dried flowers (I can't find the image on Pinterest, but I saw something similar done and it looked great), but I will first need to have a probably convoluted discussion with the Stroppy One about putting outdoor footwear on any furniture, even after they've been carefully cleaned. (His weirdness around this is too long to get into here, but it starts from a superstition around not putting footwear on chairs or tables.)

---

INCREDIBLY shallow whining related to the state of the world (because if I start thinking seriously about things, I freeze in panic): I guess I should have purchased the pretty pretty dress from the Ukrainian designer earlier, because who knows if the $USD will be worth anything and if anyone outside the US will be willing to ship anything to a US address. 

---

I need help from the sewing and costuming hive mind! I have a many dresses like this. (Mine don't have the wide sash/belt.) The skirt is two rectangles gathered at the waist, with the pockets inset at those side seams. I want to occasionally lift the skirt to about knee-length so I can wear the dress with different skirts. I've tried actual skirt lifters, and they didn't work well. I tried ribbons sewn on the outside of the waist with matching ribbons sewn on the inside at the point where the ruffle is attached to the skirt, thus catching a bundle of the skirt in a loop of ribbon that shows on the outside. (The Madwoman in the Attic saw this attempt, clutched her head, said, "NO", and left the room.) So I'm out of ideas. Help?

Drive By Update

Jan. 20th, 2026 12:38 pm
brickhousewench: (roadtrip)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
Quick Bullet Point Update for ya!

* Last Tuesday was my sister’s birthday. I found the perfect quote on Pinterst to send her for her birthday, "Happy Birthday to the only person in the world who fully understands why we turned out like this."
* Last Wednesday had dinner with [personal profile] dredpiratebunny and her partner Jeff. It was nice to get a chance to chat with him and get to know him a bit better. Also, I came home with leftovers. =D
* Last Thursday Renn Adventures left for Egypt without me. I had hoped to sign up for the trip this year, but it just doesn’t feel like the right time to travel to the Middle East (again!). I had signed up for the initial 2024 trip that got cancelled due to the October Hamas attack on Israel back in 2023. The rescheduled 2025 trip was right after our trip to Pavia last year, so didn’t go on that one. And this year it still didn’t feel right. Someday I will make it to Egypt with Carl.
* Last Friday I had my first massage of the year with Jenny. It had been a month since I’d seen her due to the holidays. I needed that!
* I spent my three day weekend re-reading Hillbilly Elegy (by VP J.D.Vance) and reading Nobody’s Girl (by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre). Both were rather depressing books, as both grew up in completely dysfunctional families.
* Monday was my dad’s birthday, so called the folks to chat.

And now I’m back to work. Busy busy busy trying to get stuff done before end of quarter/end of fiscal year.

interspecies linguistics &c

Jan. 19th, 2026 06:08 pm
kellan_the_tabby: My face, reflected in a round mirror I'm holding up; the rest of the image is the side of my head, hair shorn short. (Default)
[personal profile] kellan_the_tabby
or, a comment I posted over at Ysabet's & decided to share here, as well, because it made me giggle

I was raised by the husky as much as by my parents, & grew up speaking Dog about as well as English. I slowly learned Housecat as a second language starting in my 20s.

Jasper has had dogs as a special interest basically his whole life, & also spent a lot of time with the local cat colony, so he speaks both Dog & Feral Cat as second languages. (English is also a second language for him; his first is ASL.)

Loiosh (the orange tabby) lived with a couple of Great Pyrenees, & their humans, who are also basically Great Pyrenees, for a couple of weeks after he was orphaned. So his first language was Dog, & that was a lot of how we communicated for a couple years. We've been kinda learning Housecat together. I've learned a lot more of it than he has.

Major Tom (the big grey tabby) was feral before he decided I didn't suck too much. I've learned a lot of Feral Cat from him, & he's learned a lot of Housecat from me. He finds Loiosh to be WEIRD AS HELL but will, sometimes, help him with Cat. He CLAIMS that he won't learn Dog as a matter of principle, & he doesn't SPEAK Dog that I've seen, but he absolutely UNDERSTANDS a fair amount of it.

Remy (the LARGE black dog) is Jasper's but was raised by all of us. So he has Dog as a first language, but started picking up Housecat & Feral Cat at eight weeks. Watching an eighty pound dog assume the meatloaf position, complete with neatly-tucked front paws, is an EXPERIENCE. He's very bad at meowing, but that doesn't stop him from trying.

It's an entire-ass menagerie around here, is what.
cupcake_goth: (Default)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth

Behold the shiny! Which was almost entirely paid for by Poshmark profits, so in terms of “real” money wasn’t unreasonably expensive.

—-

My god does my hair need dying. It’s not going to happen any time soon, but I sigh every time I look in the mirror right now. There are so many projects I want to do right now, and I KNOW I must not. Even the ones that would be something I could do while sitting on the couch watching movies. Getting up to put on a movie leaves me shaky, which is a sure sign I need to keep resting. Hmmph.

—- 

Yesterday I learned that Miss Erzabet No Biting has blanket preferences. I had switched around some of the blankets I was under on the couch, with a polyester knitted one on top. She would walk onto my lap, look bewildered, and hop off. As soon as I switched things back to having the woven cotton ones as the top layer, she immediately settled down. Yes, my cat is spoiled. 

—-

Speaking of the kitties, they turn 15 this year, which means we’ve owned them for almost half our marriage. That’s weird to think about. 
 

 

(no subject)

Jan. 18th, 2026 06:17 pm
cupcake_goth: (Vampire Governess)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth
It has been decided that I’m NOT going to buy that stripy set from Blackwood Castle, because minim linked me to an eBay auction for a stunning piece of jewelry and reminded me that stripy goth clothes are relatively easy to find. I’m waiting for my Poshmark profits to hit PayPal, and then I’ll hit Buy It Now. 

—-

The Stroppy One has decided it’s necessary for him to remind me over and over that my #1 priority, my only chore right now, is to rest as much as possible. Especially because he leaves for a show on Thursday, so he won’t be around to look after me for a few days. Yes, the Madwoman in the Attic will be around, but our schedules are somewhat offset.

—-

Someone please remind me that my new boss asking if we need to set up some sort of medical accommodation for me for the next few weeks means she wants me to be okay, not that she’s annoyed I’m sick and this will be noted on my permanent record or something? Because I know my reaction is PTSD from previous bad managers, but the Brain Raccoons are doing their little song and dance, because of course they are.  

Wittering

Jan. 18th, 2026 02:05 pm
cupcake_goth: (Leeches)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth
I was worried about ordering that striped top and skirt from Blackwood Castle since, as they’re in Canada and who knows what the tariff fuckery would be. But I did some digging through their site and discovered they opened a US warehouse in August! Between that and the fact that I sold some things on Poshmark recently, yeah, I’m probably going to buy the set.

—-

Fandom whining: I know fic writers are doing their own thing, but it’s always sad when a writer I’ve subscribed to migrates to a fandom I don’t care about, sometimes abandoning their other works in progress. Le sigh. 


—-


I think the new prescriptions are kicking in. I’m not coughing quite as much, and the Stroppy One said my breathing overnight didn’t sound as wet and crackling. I still get exhausted any time I get up from the couch AND I’m jittery from the steroids, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to sit in my office and get work done on Tuesday.

—-

Women of a Certain Age will understand this: with violent coughing comes the need for constantly changing pads, and I’m so tired of it. 

(no subject)

Jan. 17th, 2026 02:02 pm
cupcake_goth: (Leeches)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth
As is traditional for me when I’m sickly enough that all I should do is rest, I have thought of at least five different craft projects I want to do. I have written them down in my fancy planner, so I’ll remember them for when I’m healthier. I may stagger upstairs to grab the supplies for the easiest one and slowly work on it.

—-

Miss Erzabet No Biting is doing her very best to nursemaid me and keep me pinned to the couch, but is startled every time I have a bout of coughing. I don’t blame her, because I find it pretty alarming, too. I know it’s only day two of the antibiotics and higher dose of prednisone, but I don’t feel any better yet and I’m frustrated about it.

—-

I’m still pining over this goddamn striped dress from Selkie. There’s one in my size on Mercari, and if it’s still available in a month I’m going to consider breaking my no-buy for clothing to get it. Of course, if I had any sense I’d soothe my coveting with either this dress from Dracula clothing or this set from Blackwood Castle.

… Oh dear, the Blackwood castle set is on sale. 

(no subject)

Jan. 16th, 2026 01:10 pm
cupcake_goth: (Leeches)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth

I’m still am suffering bronchitis. I did some digging in MyChart, because I’ve suffered this bronchitis thing at least once a year for the past few years, and mine and Mr. Loomy’s suspicions were correct: the clinic doctor I saw over the weekend, who was abrupt and didn’t listen to either of us, prescribed me less than half of the dosage of prednisone that I’ve had previously. No wonder I’m not getting better. I went back to the clinic last night, and while the (different!) doctor didn’t say anything bad about what his coworker did, his facial expression made his opinion clear. I’m now on a massive dosage of prednisone that slowly tapers and antibiotics. I tapped out from work again; look, me trying to be better about self care!

If I’m going to be a sickly invalid, I want laudanum. And a trip to the seaside where someone will push me around in a fancy wheelchair. Then more laudanum.



Yesterday I turned off the Ask Anonymously option on my Tumblr. I’ve been inundated with spam, porn bots, and unkind-to-hateful messages, and I don’t have the spoons to deal with any of it. 

cupcake_goth: (Default)
[personal profile] cupcake_goth
Discussion about the upcoming movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights is really heating up over in Tumblr-land, and I, for one, am here for it. I respect the novel's place in the canon of gothic literature, but I don't feel the need to ever reread it. But the upcoming movie looks like it's going to be a gloriously unhinged trashfire, and I'm kinda looking forward to it.

A quote from the director, which gives you a good idea of what we're in for:

"When it came to making the film, Fennell, 39, said: "I wanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14".
She suggested that some of her risque additions are things she thought she had remembered from reading the book as a teenager -- but weren't actually in there when she returned to it. 
"It's where I filled in the gaps aged 14", she said with a smile, adding that making the film had allowed her to "see what it would feel like to fulfil my 14-year-old-wish, which is both good and bad".

 
I am kinda impressed that she was able to get a studio to give her money so she could do this.

Oh! And the costumes! MY GOD, THE COSTUMES.






Boring update is boring

Jan. 12th, 2026 10:33 pm
brickhousewench: (Sigh)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
I keep meaning to write a post, but nothing much is going on in my life right now.

Thursday night I went up to visit with Stephen and Alena. I spent the night on their couch so that I could drive Alena into Boston for a very early appointment to get her chemotherapy port removed (Yay!). I need to make myself get into the sewing room this weekend to clear some space as Stephen is giving me a (working!) treadle Singer sewing machine. A friend has loaned them a HUGE gaming table and they need to make room so that people can move around it so the sewing machine has to go. I’ve wanted a treadle machine for ages, and this one looks like it’s in pretty decent condition. We had just a treadle base (no sewing machine) in the basement back home, so I’ve had plenty of practice with a treadle from when I was a kid. *Grins in reminiscing*

Other than that, I’m back to work after two weeks off for the holidays, but that’s about all that’s going on with me. It’s the rest of the world that’s careening out of control and too exciting for my preferences right now. *le sigh*

I pinned a quote that said, “Thank you for not discussing the outside world” the other day. And I’m really feeling that right now.

I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on Facebook to help lower my stress levels. And failing. I haven’t given up Facebook for Lent in the past couple of years, but I’m going to have to this year. Just to force myself to take a break. Lent runs from February 18th through April 4th. I'm not Catholic, but I play one on weekends. ;-)

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