This Week's SF news
Dec. 21st, 2025 09:40 amThe Compleat Enchanter (Incomplete Enchanter, volume 1) by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt
Dec. 21st, 2025 08:53 am
Harold Shea seeks escape from mundane life in tales of myth and magic.
The Compleat Enchanter (Incomplete Enchanter, volume 1) by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt
Sunday Word: Mephitic
Dec. 21st, 2025 11:41 ammephitic [muh-fit-ik]
adjective:
1 offensive to the smell
2 noxious; pestilential; poisonous
Examples:
Like a mephitic vapor from a sword-and-sandals epic, it slips under the door frame and into your head. (Guy Trebay, We’re Holding Tight to Our Good Luck Talismans, The New York Times, April 2020)
These moments of reckoning - in which something that once felt exciting begins to seem noxious, mephitic, dangerous - are important to heed. (Amanda Petrusich, A Quest to Rename the Williamsburg Bridge for Sonny Rollins, The New Yorker, April 2017)
The A66 motorway takes you along the bank of a river that eventually opens into the Cantabrian Sea, but there's no water to be seen through a mephitic landscape of factories and warehouses. (Paul Richardson, A great white hope in Avilés, Asturias, The Guardian, July 2011)
Mephitic vapors - spontaneous combustion - pressure of gases born of long decay - any one of numberless phenomena might be responsible. (H P Lovecraft, 'The Haunter of the Dark')
I even made them remove from the opening, as I smelled the mephitic air that issued abundantly from it, and began myself to feel giddiness in consequence of having gone too near; so that I was compelled to withdraw quickly, and inhale a purer air. (Johann David Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson)
Origin:
1620s, 'of poisonous smell, foul, noxious,' from Late Latin mephiticus, from Latin mephitis, mefitis 'noxious vapor, a pestilential exhalation, especially from the earth' (also personified as a goddess believed to have the power to avert it), an Italic word of uncertain origin. English use of mephitis is attested from 1706. (Online Etymology Dictionary)
hibernaculum
Dec. 21st, 2025 12:00 amMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 21, 2025 is:
hibernaculum \hye-ber-NAK-yuh-lum\ noun
Hibernaculum (plural hibernacula) refers to a shelter occupied during the winter by a dormant animal, such as an insect, snake, bat, or marmot.
// Local scientists are studying the longevity of bats who use bridges and other aboveground hibernacula versus that of bats who roost all winter in subterranean caves.
Examples:
“Adult female bees begin looking for a hibernation location, or hibernaculum, in the fall. If the gardener is planning to deadhead any spent flowers from the summer, aim to prune stems at varying heights (8" to 24") as a nesting site for these bees. Many perennial flowers and shrubs have pithy stems that will serve as a good location. A few common Oklahoma garden plants that are good candidates include roses, purple coneflower, salvia, bee balm, and sunflowers.” — Sherry Clark, The Shawnee (Oklahoma) News-Star, 8 Oct. 2025
Did you know?
If you’re afraid of snakes or bats, you probably won’t enjoy thinking about hibernacula, where hundreds, even thousands, of these creatures might be passing the wintry months. Other creatures also use hibernacula, though many of these tend to be less crowded. The word hibernaculum has been used for the burrow of a woodchuck, for instance, as well as for a cozy caterpillar cocoon attached to a wintry twig, and for the spot in which a frog has buried itself in mud. Hibernacula are all around us and have been around for a long, long time, but we have only called them such since the late 1700s, making hibernaculum only a few decades older than the more familiar verb hibernate. Both words come from the Latin verb hibernare, meaning “to pass the winter,” which in turn comes from hibernus, meaning “winter.”
2025 52 Card Project: Week 50: Celebrations
Dec. 20th, 2025 04:09 pmAs it was December 13, Santa Lucia Day, I also brought lussekatter, for us to have with our coffee as we baked. We spread the cookies out on a long table in my sister's living room. By taking up columns of cookies, we each had a nice mix.

M came along with Alona and Fiona, to the joy of all. Her first cookie baking!
Description: Background: a table covered with rows of Christmas cookies: bottom: a group of women smile at the corner. Top: three lussekatter

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
Holiday drama
Dec. 20th, 2025 03:59 pmIn my mind I know this shouldn't bother me, but it does. I waited my "turn" growing up and having a family and to be the one to host Thanksgiving (my parents have both passed as has my husband's mom) and now I have my own grandchildren. We still do the whole Thanksgiving dinner, but I don't feel it is as special as it was because now everyone has already had the traditional Thanksgiving meal that previously we only had that one time a year.
She always says “oh y’all are welcome to come, too,” but I just can't get into it and feel resentment that I waited all the years to be the grandma to host the meal and now it is like feeding everyone leftovers. Can you give me another way to look at this or some advice that will make me not as resentful about it?
– Leftovers Anyone?
( Read more... )
2. Dear Annie: Christmas at my parents' house used to feel magical, but lately it feels like I'm walking into a performance review. My older brother's new hobby is "radical honesty," and apparently the holidays are his favorite time to practice. Last year, as we decorated the tree, he announced that my handmade ornaments looked "like a Pinterest fail" and suggested I "sit out the creative parts" of Christmas.
He says he's only being truthful and that any discomfort is "my issue to examine." My parents beg me not to make waves because he's "working on himself," but his self-work is coming at my expense.
I don't want to blow up Christmas, but I also don't want another holiday spent swallowing my feelings while he unloads his. How do I keep the peace without letting his "honesty" ruin the season? -- Silent Night No More
( Read more... )
Saturday Word: Povitica
Dec. 20th, 2025 11:46 amPovitica (pronounced "poh-vee-TEET-sah" in Croatian, or "poh-TEET-sah" as potica in Slovenian) is a traditional Eastern European sweet or savory nut roll bread characterized by a very thin, yeast-raised dough.
A rich filling, usually finely ground walnuts, honey and/or sugar, is spread inside and then rolled into a tight spiral. Learn how to make it yourself below:
The Mortal Thor #4 - "A Merry Tale of Asgard"
Dec. 20th, 2025 10:45 am
The future of the Marvel universe, I don't think it is set, I don't think it should be set. I think you can have a bunch of different ones. To be honest, it's sort of nice to have a few futures that are very probable, like the Days of Future Past or like King Thor... -- Al Ewing
( Read more... )
Birdfeeding
Dec. 20th, 2025 11:54 amI fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches, mostly on the suet feeder.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/20/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/20/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/20/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/20/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.
Book review: Solo Dance
Dec. 20th, 2025 09:26 amLast night I wrapped up Solo Dance by Kotomi Li, translated from Japanese by Arthur Morris. This short book is about a young gay Taiwanese woman who struggles with both internal and external homophobia, and eventually moves to Japan looking for understanding.
Queer stories from other countries are always interesting to me and it’s a good reminder that progress has not been even all over the world. Much of the book is pretty depressing, because the protagonist struggled with fitting in even before she realized she was gay, and she has some real struggles. She is battling severe depression for much of the book and at several points, suicidality.
The book is touching in that the protagonist’s struggles feel real and she’s someone who is so close to having positive experience that could change her life for the better, but her luck keeps dropping on the other side each time.
I don’t want to spoil too much about the end, but while I was grateful for the overall tone of the it, it is contrived and not very believable. But I did enjoy the protagonist’s travels leading up to that point. It’s not at all subtle, and it packs a lot more plot into the final handful of chapters than the rest of the book, but it was still sweet to see the protagonist’s perspective shift a little through her engagements with other people.
I’m not sure if it’s the translation or the original prose, but the language is stilted and very emotionally distant. The reader is kept at arm’s length from the protagonist virtually the whole novel, and while we’re often told she’s feeling these intense feelings, I never felt it. It was like reading a clinical report of her feelings, which was disappointing.
This is Li’s first novel, and it reads that way. There’s a lot of heart in it, and I appreciate it for that, but it lacks a lot in technical skill. I would be interested to see more of Li’s future work, when she’s had more time to polish her ability, but I don’t regret taking the time with this one.
Saturday
Dec. 20th, 2025 10:50 amBlue Jays, House Sparrows, Juncos and Cardinals were all out this morning.
It's been stressful week around here, I'm glad they finally found the Brown University shooter!
One World Under Doom #9
Dec. 20th, 2025 07:30 am
“What’s so tragic about [Doom] is that he could be a great guy. If he went in a slightly different direction, he could be a good guy. That’s why he and Reed have such a Capital R relationship. They see themselves as these sort of very similar but very different men.” — Ryan North
( Scans under the cut... )
decorous
Dec. 20th, 2025 12:00 amMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 20, 2025 is:
decorous \DECK-er-us\ adjective
Decorous is a formal adjective used to describe an attitude or behavior characterized by propriety and good taste.
// The ceremony was conducted with a decorous solemnity.
Examples:
“... Elizabeth reveals, later, that she felt she never belonged to the decorous world of parties and corsets and curls and feathers on the head ...” — Ryan Lattanzio, Indie Wire, 13 Oct. 2025
Did you know?
One of the earliest recorded uses of decorous appears in a book titled The Rules of Civility (1671): “It is not decorous to look in the glass, to comb, brush, or do any thing of that nature to ourselves, whilst the said person be in the Room.” This rule of thumb may be a bit outdated; like many behaviors once deemed unbecoming, public primping is unlikely to offend in modern times. Though mores shift, decorous lives on to describe timeless courtesies like polite speech, proper attire, and (ahem) covering one’s cough.
Staycation!
Dec. 19th, 2025 06:40 pmI have just borrowed Cahokia Jazz and a YA novel by EK Johnston from the library, so I'm set for that. And I'm meeting my oldest friend in the world in LA next month, so she can go to the desert for the first time, so we're sending each other links and stuff, and that's fun.
Tonight I will set up the batter for those insane Dark and Stormy cookies -- though I do them as bars, it's so much easier and the texture is more controllable -- and tomorrow I will make a crustless quiche for my BIL's birthday. Sunday is a cookie exchange, Monday is wrapping. It's gonna be a nice week, or it would be if not for all the rain.
Why did the rain wait until I was on vacation?
Happy holidays to y'all!
Absolute Green Lantern #8 - "Sojourner"
Dec. 19th, 2025 06:20 pm
A lot of people still are like, "Oh, Jo's the Green Lantern, but she's only in it a little bit with all this large ensemble cast that keeps expanding." [...] Jo's not the Green Lantern. Jo has the green power. There's a difference. The Green Lantern is that big thing that's currently on the moon. Nobody knows what the hell it is. That's the Green Lantern. That's what the book's about. -- Al Ewing
( Read more... )
Birdfeeding
Dec. 19th, 2025 03:20 pmI fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/19/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/19/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/19/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
I carried 4 logs from the driveway pile to the patio rack.
As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.
mahi-mahi
Dec. 19th, 2025 07:48 amThanks, WikiMedia!
Good eating, and eaten worldwide pretty much. We got the name from Hawaiian mahimahi, but it's also called that in related languages such as Tahitian, emphatic reduplication of mahi, strong.
And even though I've run this before, because I can't resist such a fun word, a bonus fish name: humuhumunukunukuapuaa (hoo-moo-hoo-moo-noo-koo-noo-koo-ah-poo-AH-ah) - n., the reef triggerfish (Rhinecantus rectangulus). This comes up surprisingly often (hat-tip to Octonauts) because it's Hawaii's state fish. In Hawaiian, humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa is a compound of humuhumu, triggerfish + nuku, snout + nuku, blunt + ā, conjunction between two adjectives + puaʻa, pig-like, so "triggerfish with a short, piglike snout." And no, I haven't found what triggerfish has a piglike snout that isn't short, making that an oddly specific name.
And with that, I'm finally done with words English acquired from Native languages of the New World. I'm taking next week off due to holiday chaos, and possibly the week after (we'll see how chaotic things are).
---L.
So much estrangement
Dec. 19th, 2025 09:23 amHe always had digs, nasty comments, insults. I would walk away and avoid him until he left. As years went by, I avoided him, but our mom would always insist on a family dinner. Now he was good at saving face, no comments when mom or other family members were around but the moment we were stuck in the same room, insults flew.
I was a constant support for my mom until she passed. I figured I was done with him, too. Well now he’s trying to reach out to me. I have responded with “not gonna happen” and I wrote out all the grievances with details. Now he's been whining to my other brother (70) that I'm mean to him and does not understand why I hate him. Brother #2 had no idea this was happening in my life. I explained to #2 and gave a few excerpts, ones that really hurt. How can I get past this?
– No Longer Insulted
( Read more... )
2. Dear Eric: Twenty years ago, my husband’s brother and his wife let us know they were going no contact with us. They said it was permanent. When we asked the reasons, we heard we are insensitive and had hurt their feelings beyond repair.
They stopped contact between us and their 3-year-old son and their baby at that time. They said contact with us would damage their children. Attempts to apologize to them for offenses we barely understand didn’t work.
Five years ago, at a family wedding, my brother-in-law spoke with my husband but snubbed me to my face. He wouldn’t even say hello. Now another family wedding is scheduled next year. I have developed close relationships with others in the extended family but dread dealing with these relatives again. I’m thinking of simply saying hello if I see them and letting it go at that. Any advice will be taken to heart, I am struggling and it’s a year away.
– Contact with No Contact
( Read more... )
3. Dear Eric: My son is turning 40 on December 22. My husband and I are at a quandary as to how to celebrate him.
There have been issues between my husband and him over things from his childhood. We did a special trip for his older brother when he turned 40 and would like to do something special for this son's 40th as well.
Our daughter-in-law has made special plans for him and we are not included. I understand that, but I need some ideas as to how to celebrate this extra special year without rocking the boat.
I love my son with all my heart, as I do all my children, and want his 40th birthday to be memorable in a positive way. Any suggestions?
– Mom Who Wants to Celebrate
( Read more... )
4. Dear Eric: I've just turned 40 this past year. The last 15 years I was in a horrible drug addiction. I lied and hurt and did terrible things to a lot of people, especially my family.
About eight years ago they officially disowned me. Understandable.
I've cleaned up and got my act together six years ago. At first, I tried to force my way back into their lives, which all refuted. I lashed out, said horrible things and stopped trying to be in their lives. My mom will stop by on my birthday for 10 minutes or so and drop a card off at Christmas. As for my two older brothers and my father, it’s radio silence.
I guess what I'm asking is, what do I do to fix this and fast, as I said I've turned 40 this year, my parents are both 70. Time is running out, and I couldn't imagine living my life without some kind of acceptance from my father. Or knowing he did or does love me.
My heart breaks at the thought, but this is a real pickle. How can I fix a problem when the ones I need to fix it with won't talk to me? Do I just keep ignoring their existence and put on this façade that I don’t care to my wife and 4-year-old son? What picture am I painting to my son, as he's been guilty by association you could say as he has never spent time with his grandparents or uncles or even my nieces and nephews?
– Discombobulated
( Read more... )
5. Dear Annie: Almost 15 years ago, my older sister removed me from her life after a series of messy arguments. At the time, she just stopped taking my calls and waited for me to leave family functions before going. She told our three siblings and mother that she didn't want me in her life. She likely gave them reasons but never allowed anyone to tell me.
When she ghosted me, I was heartbroken. I bugged everyone for years, asking how she was, crying about how much I missed her. I made many attempts to reconnect that were met with silence or warnings from family that she was still angry at me, but no one could ever say for what.
A few times, she asked our oldest sister to bring my kids for her to see them without me or my husband. My husband refused because he has never met her. I agreed with him.
Recently, I came to the conclusion that my sister removing me from her life was a blessing. She was toxic, and our relationship is a long history of cruelty on her part and a lack of boundaries mixed with codependency on mine. I told our oldest sister just that.
Mere days after that conversation with my oldest sister, my estranged sister messaged my teenage children on social media. She told them she was their aunt and that just because she and I don't get along doesn't mean she shouldn't have a relationship with them.
I responded by telling her she made the choice 15 years ago that we aren't family, that it was a blessing and she needs to leave my kids alone. Then I blocked her on their accounts.
She responded by sending my husband -- who she's never met or spoken to -- a message for me and then blocking him. Her argument was that I had played the victim for 15 years, that I was hateful and didn't support her. She said that I was using my kids as leverage. She called me toxic and stated that she was disappointed I didn't make any efforts to know her kids. She also stated repeatedly that I had been talking badly about her to everyone during the last 15 years.
I am very confused at this point. I don't know what she's been told for 15 years about what I've said because no one has told me anything. If I am toxic, why would she want me to have a relationship with her kids?
I believe I'm doing the right thing by keeping my teenagers away from her because I know how she treated me throughout our childhood and young adult years. She is not a safe person.
My siblings, their spouses and kids all seem to love her and have great relationships with her. It feels like most of the time, though, that if I don't reach out to them, I don't hear from them at all.
I'm now questioning if I should remove my three siblings from my life, too, as it sounds like they have been telling her I'm saying things. They've also been completely complacent in her alienation of me. -- Confused in Kansas
( Read more... )
Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold (Abeni’s Song, volume 2) by P. Djèlí Clark
Dec. 19th, 2025 06:42 am
In which history long forgotten is recovered.
Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold (Abeni’s Song, volume 2) by P. Djèlí Clark
New Worlds: In the Dark Ages
Dec. 19th, 2025 09:07 amYes, that Alexander. The Great.
How the heck did we wind up with an entire genre of stories about a Macedonian conquerer who died young that bear so little resemblance to the historical reality?
The answer is that history is much easier to forget than we think nowadays, with our easily mass-produced books. However much you want to lament "those who do not remember the past" etc., we know vastly more about it than any prior age could even aspire to. The legendary tales about Alexander arose quite soon after his death, but by the medieval period, his actual life was largely forgotten; more factual texts were not rediscovered and disseminated until the Renaissance. So for quite a while there, the legends were basically all we had.
Historians tend to not like the phrase "the Dark Ages" anymore, and for good reason. It creates assumptions about what life was like -- nasty, brutish, and short -- that turn out to not really match the reality. But while plenty of people have indeed used that term to contrast with the "light" brought by the Renaissance, one of the men responsible for popularizing it (Cardinal Cesare Baronio, in the sixteenth century) meant it as a statement on the lack of records: to him, the Middle Ages were "dark" because we could not see into them. The massive drop in surviving records had cast that era into shadow.
How do those records get lost? Year Two went into the perils that different writing materials and formats are vulnerable to; those in turn affect the preservation of historical knowledge. Papyrus texts have to be recopied regularly if they're to survive in most environments, so anything that disrupts the supply of materials or the labor available to do that recopying means that dozens, hundreds, even thousands of texts will just . . . go away. Parchment is vastly more durable, but it's also very expensive, and so it tended to get recycled: scrape off the existing text, write on it again, and unless you were lazy enough in your scraping that the old words can still be read -- think of a poorly erased blackboard or whiteboard -- later people will need chemical assistance (very destructive) or high-tech photography to see what you got rid of.
And when your supply of written texts shrinks, it tends to go hand in hand with the literacy rate dropping. So even if you have a record of some historical event, how many people have read it? Just because a thing gets preserved doesn't mean the information it contains will be widely disseminated. That is likely to be the domain of specialists -- if them! Maybe it just sits on a shelf or in a box, completely untouched.
Mind you, written records are not the only way of remembering the past. Oral accounts can be astonishingly precise, even over a period of hundreds or thousands of years! But that tends to be true mostly in societies that are wholly oral, without any tradition of books. On an individual level, we have abundant research showing that parts of the brain which don't see intensive use tend to atrophy; if you don't exercise your memory on a daily basis, you will have a poorer memory than someone who lives without writing, let alone a smartphone. On a societal level, you need training and support for the lorekeepers, so they act as a verification check on each other's accurate recitation. Without that, the stories will drift over time, much like the Alexander Romance has done.
And regardless of whether history is preserved orally or on the page, cultural factors are going to shape what history gets preserved. When the fall of the Western Roman Empire changed the landscape of European letters, the Church was left as the main champion of written records. Were they going to invest their limited time and resources into salvaging the personal letters of ordinary Greeks and Romans? Definitely not. Some plays and other literary works got recopied; others were lost forever. The same was true of histories and works of philosophy. A thousand judgment calls got made, and anything which supported the needs and values of the society of the time was more likely to make the cut, while anything deemed wrong-headed or shocking was more likely to fall by the wayside.
The result is that before the advent of the printing press -- and even for some time after it -- the average person would be astoundingly ignorant of any history outside living memory. They might know some names or events, but can they accurately link those up with dates? Their knowledge would be equivalent to my understanding of the American Civil War amounting to "there was a Great Rebellion in the days of Good President Abe, who was most treacherously murdered by . . . I dunno, somebody."
In fact, there might be several different "somebodies" depending on who's telling the tale. John Wilkes Booth might live on as a byword for an assassin -- imagine if "booth" became the general term for a murderer -- but it's equally possible that some people would tell a tale where Lincoln was murdered by an actor, others where a soldier was responsible, and did that happen at a theatre or at his house? (Booth originally planned to kidnap Lincoln from the latter; that detail might get interpolated into the memory of the assassination.) Or it gets mixed up somehow with Gettysburg, and Lincoln is shot right after giving his famous speech, because all the famous bits have been collapsed together.
Even today, there are plenty of Americans who would probably be hard-pressed to correctly name the start and end dates of our Civil War; I'm not trying to claim that the availability of historical information means we all know it in accurate detail. But at least the information is there, and characters who need to know it can find it. Furthermore, our knowledge is expanding all the time, thanks to archaeology and the recovery of forgotten or erased documents. Now and in the future, the challenge tends to lie more in the ability to sift through a mountain of data to find what you need, and in the arguments over how that data should be interpreted.
But in any story modeled on an earlier kind of society, I roll my eyes when characters are easily able to learn what happened six hundred years ago, and moreover the story they get is one hundred percent correct. That just ain't how it goes. The past is dark, and when you shine a light into its depths, you might get twelve different reflections bouncing back at you, as competing narratives each remember those events in variable ways.
For a writer, though, I don't think that's a bug. It's a feature. Let your characters struggle with this challenge! Muddy the waters with contradictory accounts! If you want your readers to know the "real" story, write that as a bonus for your website or a standalone piece of related fiction. Then you get to have your cake and eat it, too.

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/Tnyzpz)
veracity
Dec. 19th, 2025 12:00 amMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 19, 2025 is:
veracity \vuh-RASS-uh-tee\ noun
Veracity is a formal word that can refer to truth or accuracy, or to the quality of being truthful or honest.
// The jury seemed not to doubt the veracity of the witness.
Examples:
"Raise your hand if you've been questioning the veracity of real events, news stories and images posted on social media lately. It used to be we'd have to tiptoe around a minefield of hoaxes only once a year, on April 1. But thanks to the proliferation of misinformation spawned by artificial intelligence, every day on the internet is an exercise in judgment and media literacy." — Laura Yuen, The Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, 9 Oct. 2025
Did you know?
Veracity has been in use since the early 17th century, and we can honestly tell you that it comes from the Latin adjective vērāx, "truthful," which in turn comes from the earlier verus, "true." Verus also gives us the words verity ("the quality of being true"), verify ("to establish the truth of"), and verisimilitude ("the appearance of truth"), among other words. In addition, vērāx is the root of the word veraciousness, a somewhat rarer synonym and cousin of veracity.
gremlins
Dec. 18th, 2025 11:47 pmToday while I was using my phone (Pixel) in a perfectly ordinary way, the screen went black and soon after the phone stopped responding at all. I tried all the usual diagnostics and remedies to no avail, then took it to Google's favored repair shop. (The phone's out of warranty so that doesn't matter, but it was also the closest option and they do work on Pixels.) My hopes for a loose connection were dashed when the guy said the motherboard had failed, this is a common problem with the Pixel 5A, it can't be fixed, and I need a new phone. Oh joy...
I bought a Pixel when my previous phone decided that holding a charge is not strictly required. I chose a Pixel in part because I was tired of vendor bloatware and I wanted generic Android. That phone failed two weeks before the end of the warranty, so Google replaced it. I've had this Pixel for less than three years. And here we are again.
I've had other problems with this phone, and some with my previous Android phone too. When I inherited an iPad this summer I took it as a chance to explore iOS. Some things are certainly different, some cryptic, and some hindered by Apple's design philosophy, but it seems a reasonable option. Dani is happy with his iPhone and showed me some of the things I hadn't yet figured out. It appears that most of the apps I use have iOS versions, and I can probably find reasonable alternatives for most of the rest (Tusky I'll miss you), and not having a working phone is a problem. So I decided to change teams.
The problems came from unexpected sources.
I went to the Apple store, worked with a very helpful and clueful person there, and was making good progress when I asked where the tray for the SIM card is. No physical SIM cards; that's all digital. Ok, I said, and we transfer my phone number and stuff how? No worries; they can do that at the Apple store. I just need to open the T-Mobile app on my phone and... oh right, we'll need to do that from a computer. Off we go, I log in (I'd made sure I knew my T-Mobile password), and... 2FA. They want to send a code to my phone. The phone that can't show a code. I asked if we could maybe, just for a minute, move my SIM card to some other phone they might have lying around, but no luck. The web site had a second option, an authenticator app, which is on my phone...
I do have that app also installed on my tablet, because I worry about single points of failure. I hadn't thought to bring my tablet with me (smacks forehead) and there wasn't enough time to fetch it and still get my iPhone today, but the employee suggested that I could also buy the phone at a T-Mobile store and they'd be able to validate my identity and move the SIM card. And I'd be welcome to come back tomorrow for any setup assistance I need. I thanked the person and apologized for not getting the phone from him (he understood), and headed to the T-Mobile store.
T-Mobile's phone service has been mostly very good for us, but customer service is not their strong suit and it's been getting worse recently. (Their new CEO probably wants to close all their stores, forcing people to do everything through their crappy and oft-broken app.) I went to their store and the person said no problem, they can sell me an iPhone and move my service to it, I'll just need to use their app to... Ahem. Oh right, he said, ok we can sell you the phone, but we can't take a credit card; you'll need to pay cash. Oh really? I pointed out that the amount is over the daily limit at local ATMs, and he said I could pay a smaller amount and they'll finance it. Dubiouser and dubiouser. Somewhere in there he mentioned an "upgrade charge", I asked in what way I was upgrading my service, and he admitted that it was a service charge because they can't mark up the phone. Uh huh. At the start of the conversation, after checking my ID, he thanked me for being a customer for more than a decade, but I guess being a long-time customer doesn't actually mean anything.
I said no thanks and left. When I got home Dani said he got a text message from T-Mobile that someone on the account was making service changes, which I very much did not, so now we'll have to make sure they didn't actually do anything.
Tomorrow morning I'll go back to the Apple store with a bag of electronics -- my tablet for the authenticator app, my previous phone and its charger in case we need to move a SIM card to get a 2FA code anyway (I was able to use the phone tonight if it's plugged in), and the inherited iPad just in case that's helpful for anything because why not? I just wish I knew the name of today's helpful person so I could ask for him again. (He never said and I hadn't asked. Oops.)
Gremlins. Why did it have to be gremlins?
chocolate
Dec. 18th, 2025 06:20 pmI took the bus to Brookline Village, walked a little extra because I was wrong about which bus stop to use, walked into the shop, and asked for a one-pound box.
I bought two vegan caramels, which Adrian had asked for; I'd have gotten more, but I wasn't sure what she or Cattitude think of sea salt caramel. Just for myself, I got six dairy truffles, three lemon and three lime. The rest was a few (vegan) chocolate creams, and a lot of chocolate-dipped fruit and nuts, including several of their excellent chocolate covered plums, a candy I haven't seen anywhere else.
I came home via Trader Joe's, where I bought fruit, a bell pepper, hummus, pre-cooked chicken sausages, a carton of chocolate ice cream, and a box of frozen vanilla and chocolate macarons.
Even counting the chocolate part of the groceries, I would have had money left from the $79 that happens to be how much cash is in my wallet right now. That's a pretty arbitrary metric, since I don't always have the same amount of cash (I do make a point of having some, because cash still comes in handy sometimes).
*see yesterday's post
Birdfeeding
Dec. 18th, 2025 01:38 pmI fed the birds. Unsurprisingly I haven't seen any.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/18/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/18/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
It's been raining off and on all day. It was raining so briskly in the afternoon that not all the outside tasks got done. Fortunately it's just drizzling now so I finished up what I could. I haven't seen any wildlife all day, which is sensible of them.
The sky has been so cloudy all day that it was perennially twilight. At sunset, the sun hit a band of less clouds, so now 3/4 of the sky is bizarre shades of orange-purple. The road is wet and catching the last light of day like a ribbon of gold.
I am done for the night.
Despot, Dome Scandal: JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #3-4 (JLI 38)
Dec. 18th, 2025 12:32 pm
JLI #16-17 introduced the Queen Bee and her alliance with Jack O’Lantern. In that first appearance, she was all poise and grace. Despite her chilling games of mind control, she also exuded a false warmth that snared lovers and allies and disarmed her enemies.
In her second appearance, the warmth is gone. It’s true what they say: holding high political office ages people before their time.
( But why won’t certain office-holders DIE of old age already? )
muumuu
Dec. 18th, 2025 07:40 amThanks, WikiMedia!
Introduced by Christian missionaries in several Polynesian cultures in the early 1800s, intended as an undergarment to a fuller dress that covered up more of those "half-naked savages," but in Hawaii it evolved into a dress on its own that's better suited to the climate. (The fuller dress, now sometimes called a Mother Hubbard dress, is a holokū in Hawaiian.) The Hawaiian name, muʻumuʻu, pronounced with four syllables, means cut-off/shortened, because it lacks the yoke and long sleeves of the holokū.
---L.
jaunty
Dec. 18th, 2025 12:00 amMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 18, 2025 is:
jaunty \JAWN-tee\ adjective
Something described as jaunty is lively in manner or appearance. Jaunty can also describe something, such as an article of clothing, that suggests a lively and confident quality.
// The server whistled a jaunty tune as she wiped the tables and set out fresh flowers in preparation for the day’s diners.
Examples:
“He stood at the front of the room and announced that we would begin with a quiz, which we all failed because the quiz was over material that we were supposed to have covered during the last class. When he handed the quizzes back to us after the break, he did so in a frenetic, almost jaunty way, running up and down the aisles and announcing our grades—‘Zero, zero, zero’—loudly before tossing the quizzes down in front of us ...” — Lori Ostlund, Are You Happy?: Stories, 2025
Did you know?
Does throwing on a jaunty hat make someone appear more genteel? Maybe, but something more definitive links the words: both jaunty and genteel come from the French word gentil, meaning “of aristocratic birth.” Genteel was borrowed first to describe things associated with aristocratic people. Jaunty joined the language just a few years later in the mid-17th century as a synonym of stylish and also as a synonym for genteel. While genteel has maintained its associations of propriety and high social class, jaunty has traipsed into less stuffy territory as a descriptor of tunes and hats and other things that suggest lively confidence.
Cloud Carpets
Dec. 17th, 2025 09:23 pm
Last week while taking out the trash, I noticed that the clouds were low in the sky and really thick and ropey, like a plush carpet. Hurried home to grab the camera as sunset was coming soon and I wanted to be sure I caught the look.
( Read more... )
Birdfeeding
Dec. 17th, 2025 06:23 pmI fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.
Bundle of Holding: Tales of the Valiant
Dec. 17th, 2025 02:08 pm
The tabletop fantasy roleplaying game from Kobold Press of high adventure in a Labyrinth of infinite worlds, and more.
Bundle of Holding: Tales of the Valiant
inherited IRA, part I don't even know
Dec. 17th, 2025 11:37 amThe bit where the advisor told me to search for something on the website, and that led to an irrelevant form, was not encouraging--I think he overheard me saying to
Jonathan said this should take 1-2 business days at the BNY end, and that he'll let me know when the transfer has gone through.
I am not going to spend all my money on chocolate, probably not even all the money currently in my wallet, but it's tempting.
Micah Aaron Tajone Kalap Obituary
Dec. 17th, 2025 10:56 amMicah Aaron Tajone Kalap Obituary
As it happens, the bridge nearest the funeral home was just torn down. As a result, access looks like this...

(Buses are even worse)
Princess Jellyfish, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura
Dec. 17th, 2025 09:11 am
Can a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification? Should a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification?
Princess Jellyfish, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura
pahoehoe & aa
Dec. 17th, 2025 06:56 amaa or a'a (AH-ah) - n. basaltic (i.e. mafic) lava with a jagged, clinkery surface.
Fresh aa flowing over cool pahoehoe:

Thanks, WikiMedia!
So a bit of volcanology. I ran mafic and felsic as a pair a while ago, but in sum, lava with a lot of silica, called felsic, is viscous and traps gas, so is associated with explosive eruptions, while lava with very little silica, called mafic or basaltic, is runny and lets gas escape, and so it associated with lava flows and shield volcanoes such as the entire Hawaii archipelago. If the surface of a lava flow cools rapidly, the skin solidifies then gets broken up as the lava beneath it flows on, becoming aa -- but if it cools slowly, it flows smoothly and becomes pahoehoe. The Anglicized forms of the Hawaiian words for these two types of lava flow were popularized by American geologist Clarence Dutton starting in the 1880s. The Hawaiian words themselves are pāhoehoe, from nominalizing prefix pā- meaning "having the qualities of" + hoe-hoe, reduplication of hoe, to paddle (so essentially, "like paddle ripples"), and ʻaʻā, to burn/glow/fury.
---L.
Good Job: My coworker’s emotional support animal is causing me emotional distress!
Dec. 17th, 2025 08:53 amespouse
Dec. 17th, 2025 12:00 amMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 17, 2025 is:
espouse \ih-SPOWZ\ verb
To espouse an ideology, belief, etc., is to take it up and support it as a cause. Espouse is usually encountered in formal speech and writing.
// The article explores some of the lesser-known viewpoints espoused by the charismatic leader.
Examples:
“Crammed into a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village, they [Yoko Ono and John Lennon] immersed themselves in the city’s counterculture, absorbing progressive politics whenever they weren’t glued to the television set. Lennon’s celebrity secured the duo a large platform to espouse these ideas ...” — Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Pitchfork, 11 Oct. 2025
Did you know?
As you might guess, the words espouse and spouse are hitched, both coming from the Latin verb spondēre, meaning “to promise” or “to betroth.” In fact, the two were once completely interchangeable, with each serving as a noun meaning “a newly married person” or “a partner in marriage” and also as a verb meaning “to marry.” Their semantic separation began when the noun espouse fell out of use. Nowadays, espouse is almost exclusively encountered as a verb used in the figuratively extended sense “to commit to and support as a cause.”
