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1. I got my hair cut this morning. Had to reschedule the appointment from last Monday because I had a work meeting conflict with it...and then the meeting was cancelled! Annoying, and my hair was definitely feeling longer than I usually like to let it get, but not the end of the world. Glad to have it cut again, though.

2. I got some tri-tip out of the freezer Saturday to have for dinner and it ended up being more than I thought it was once it was thawed and unwrapped, so I cut it into four small steaks and had one for dinner that day with rice and broccoli, made steak salad yesterday and today for lunch, and then had the final piece tonight in fried rice (which was very simple with only edamame in addition to the steak, and a fried egg on top). I'm glad I was able to make a variety of easy meals with it!

3. This window is one of Molly's favorite spots.

diaryof_samuelpepys_feed

Posted by Samuel Pepys

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/24/

Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and I, going forth toward White Hall, we hear that the King and Duke are come this morning to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money. So we by coach to them, and there went up and down all the magazines with them; but methought it was but poor discourse and frothy that the King’s companions (young Killigrew among the rest) about the codpieces of some of the men in armour there to be seen, had with him. We saw none of the money, but Mr. Slingsby did show the King, and I did see, the stamps of the new money that is now to be made by Blondeau’s fashion, which are very neat, and like the King. Thence the King to Woolwich, though a very cold day; and the Duke to White Hall, commanding us to come after him, which we did by coach; and in his closett, my Lord Sandwich being there, did discourse with us about getting some of this money to pay off the Fleets, and other matters; and then away hence, and, it being almost dinner time, I to my Lord Crew’s, and dined with him, and had very good discourse, and he seemed to be much pleased with my visits. Thence to Mr. Phillips, and so to the Temple, where met my cozen Roger Pepys and his brother, Dr. John, as my arbitrators against Mr. Cole and Mr. John Bernard for my uncle Thomas, and we two with them by appointment. They began very high in their demands, and my friends, partly being not so well acquainted with the will, and partly, I doubt, not being so good wits as they, for which I blame my choosing of relations (who besides that are equally engaged to stand for them as me), I was much troubled thereat, and taking occasion to deny without my father’s consent to bind myself in a bond of 2000l. to stand to their award, I broke off the business for the present till I hear and consider further, and so thence by coach (my cozen, Thomas Pepys, being in another chamber busy all the while, going along with me) homeward, and I set him down by the way; but, Lord! how he did endeavour to find out a ninepence to clubb with me for the coach, and for want was forced to give me a shilling, and how he still cries “Gad!” and talks of Popery coming in, as all the Fanatiques do, of which I was ashamed. So home, finding my poor wife very busy putting things in order, and so to bed, my mind being very much troubled, and could hardly sleep all night, thinking how things are like to go with us about Brampton, and blaming myself for living so high as I do when for ought I know my father and mother may come to live upon my hands when all is done.

Read the annotations

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/24/

mific

The latest xkcd made me cry (in a good way). For some reason it was the Northern lights pic that did it.

which_chick

Sunday was pony day this week. Caught ponies (Switch came over, Snap had to be gotten by Trys.), Grooming and snackies, Switch is getting very good at picking her feet up. We did a bit of ground work to ensure brains were functional, then we went riding. For, obviously, small "driveway" sized rides.

Riding is now "we get on in random places" -- this time it was from the small hill beside the driveway -- to build confidence and awareness that people hop on ponies anywhere at any time, not just carefully from a bucket "mounting block" in that one special spot.

Still in halters, we skipped bridles, we expanded the riding asks.

Riding was now... back and forth from tack shed to wide spot in driveway (x2) plus down to the big orange gate (x1) plus some big circles plus standing still plus TROTTING on demand up to the tack shed (x2) but walking back down (because it's slightly downhill and they have shit balance, so walking downhill is better). Ponies were troopers and did a great job. Go ponies.

We were time-limited so did not do a walkies up over the hill. Perhaps over the holiday weekend.

torachan

1. Last week when I was reorganizing stuff in the shed, we went over some items and decided we no longer needed to keep them, but since it was still raining off and on, I didn't put them out at the time. Today I got them out on the curb, along with a box of ornaments we decided we no longer want, so hopefully those all get picked up soon.

2. I did some cleaning out of kitchen cupboards and fridge drawers yesterday and today. There were a lot of snacks that are expiring within the next week or so and Carla's out of town and I'm not going to eat them on my own, so I took them up to the Little Free Library that's been converted to a mini food pantry and they were already all gone the next time I took a walk.

3. Look at this sweet Chloe.

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Posted by Samuel Pepys

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/23/

(Lord’s day). Up, after some talk with my wife, soberly, upon yesterday’s difference, and made good friends, and to church to hear Mr. Mills, and so home, and Mr. Moore and my brother Tom dined with me. My wife not being well to-day did not rise. In the afternoon to church again, and heard drowsy Mr. Graves, and so to see Sir W. Pen, who continues ill in bed, but grows better and better every day. Thence to Sir W. Batten’s, and there staid awhile and heard how Sir R. Ford’s daughter is married to a fellow without friends’ consent, and the match carried on and made up at Will Griffin’s, our doorkeeper’s. So to my office and did a little business, and so home and to bed.

I talked to my brother to-day, who desires me to give him leave to look after his mistress still; and he will not have me put to any trouble or obligation in it, which I did give him leave to do.

I hear to-day how old rich Audley is lately dead, and left a very great estate, and made a great many poor familys rich, not all to one. Among others, one Davis, my old schoolfellow at Paul’s, and since a bookseller in Paul’s Church Yard: and it seems do forgive one man 60,000l. which he had wronged him of, but names not his name; but it is well known to be the scrivener in Fleet Street, at whose house he lodged. There is also this week dead a poulterer, in Gracious Street, which was thought rich, but not so rich, that hath left 800l. per annum, taken in other men’s names, and 40,000 Jacobs in gold.

Read the annotations

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/23/

author_by_night posting in

fan_writers

Let's talk about crossovers and crossover AUs . For example, "Sam and Dean from Supernatural hang out with Buffy and Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer"* and "Buffy and Dawn are Hunters, like Sam and Dean." Two different things, but similar concepts.

ETA: I used "fusion", but I don't think that's quite the right term.

With crossover AUs, how do you make it its own story, as opposed to just Buffy and Dawn speaking Sam and Dean's lines? Do you include other character parallels?

What do you count as a crossover, versus a cameo? Do you consider it crossover if Sam and Dean show up briefly, or would that be more of a cameo?

When it comes to tagging, you tag the fandoms, or just the characters? For that matter, how closely do you prefer crossover AUs follow the original canon?

torachan

1. I've got the house to myself for the next week and a half. Carla has gone to Wisconsin to spend Thanksgiving with her aunt and uncle and cousins. Took her to the airport this morning and she's arrived safely at the airport in Chicago and currently on the bus to their house.

2. I got some more wire rack shelving for the shed the other day and put the first of two shelves together today. They're pretty quick to do, but I don't actually have room to put them both in the shed until I rearrange some stuff, which I'll do tomorrow, and then I can put the second one together. We're storing some books (twelve boxes, actually, but thankfully we've got the space) for Alex* in there and they're all in random boxes that weren't really meant for books and don't stack well, so they've semi fallen over. I bought some bankers boxes to repack them and then put them on the shelves to make them more manageable.

*Our good friend who formerly went by Alexander is now going by Alex and using she/her pronouns, just FYI.

3. We got the big lego Christmas tree set that came out last month and I just finished putting it together today. It has twenty-four bags and I usually do a bag a day when working on a project, so it's taken me about two weeks. It's really impressive!

( Read more... )

4. Tuxie!

diaryof_samuelpepys_feed

Posted by Samuel Pepys

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/22/

This morning, from some difference between my wife and Sarah, her maid, my wife and I fell out cruelly, to my great discontent. But I do see her set so against the wench, whom I take to be a most extraordinary good servant, that I was forced for the wench’s sake to bid her get her another place, which shall cost some trouble to my wife, however, before I suffer to be.

Thence to the office, where I sat all the morning, then dined; Mr. Moore with me, at home, my wife busy putting her furniture in order. Then he and I out, and he home and I to my cozen Roger Pepys to advise about treating with my uncle Thomas, and thence called at the Wardrobe on Mr. Moore again, and so home, and after doing much business at my office I went home and caused a new fashion knocker to be put on my door, and did other things to the putting my house in order, and getting my outward door painted, and the arch.

This day I bought the book of country dances against my wife’s woman Gosnell comes, who dances finely; and there meeting Mr. Playford he did give me his Latin songs of Mr. Deering’s, which he lately printed.

This day Mr. Moore told me that for certain the Queen-Mother is married to my Lord St. Albans, and he is like to be made Lord Treasurer.

Newes that Sir J. Lawson hath made up a peace now with Tunis and Tripoli, as well as Argiers, by which he will come home very highly honoured.

Read the annotations

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/22/

torachan

Recently Finished
The Mill House Murders
I have read manga adaptations of two Ayatsuji Yukito novels (Another and The Decagon House Murders), but never actually read any of the books. And I guess I still haven't technically "read" any because this was an audiobook lol. I didn't realize that there's a loose series that covers this, The Decagon House Murders, and several others. I happened across this on Hoopla and the narrator was pleasant and had good pronounciation for the character names, though alas, the other two in the series that are out in translation don't have the same narrators and I listened to a preview and didn't like either of them. I'll pick them up as books, though, and also reread The Decagon House Murders because I don't remember the character who links the books lol. (I remember quite a bit about the rest of the plot, though!) Anyway, I didn't like this one as much as The Decagon House Murders but it was good. It seems all of the books in this series are linked by one character but also by the fact that they all take place in houses built by an architect who always added hidden rooms and odd features.

Strange Houses
I read the manga adaptation of this, but after seeing

rachelmanija's review of the book and seeing a comment that the various adaptations are all somewhat different, I decided to check this out as well. It's actually a suuuuuuper short read because it's under 200 pages to begin with, but the floor plans are constantly reprinted as the characters reference different oddities, so the actual number of text pages is much less. In addition, the dialogue is all script style. I think this works better as a manga, but the story was still very compelling and I enjoyed it. The biggest difference that I could see from the novel and the manga (not comparing them side by side but just from memory) is that in the novel they never go visit the house where it all started.

Murder at the Foundling Hospital
Third in the Tate and Bell mystery series. I keep forgetting that I don't like the narrator so I got the audiobook again and then regretted it. I do like the series enough to keep reading, so I will make sure to stick actually reading from now on.

This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (and Why It Matters)
Fun book about maps by the guys from the Map Men youtube channel, which I love.

My Home Hero vol. 13-15

torachan

1. Finished up another puzzle tonight.

This is one that Carla bought on a whim and is not something I would have chosen myself due to the limited color palette, but it actually ended up being a lot more enjoyable than I'd anticipated. I've definitely gotten better at puzzles over the past six months since I started doing them (I would guess I probably hadn't done any physical jigsaw puzzles since childhood, though had occasionally done digital ones, but even those not in years) and I was very rusty at the time. This was still a challenge, but it only took about ten days, and aside from the border and a few other bits that Carla did, I did most of it myself.

2. It's the weekend! Not only that, but since I have next Thursday off for Thanksgiving, I decided to put in PTO for Friday as well to make it a four day weekend. I think most people in the office will be doing the same lol.

3. It was raining when I woke up, but by the time I went out for my walk about twenty minutes later, it had already pretty much finished, and that was it for the day. No more rain on the forecast, so that's nice. We got a good amount, but I'm ready to be dry again.

4. I got a ticket to see Mika next May. And learned that not only does he have a new album coming out at the end of this year, he also had a French-language album out a couple years ago that I totally missed.

5. Peek-a-boo!

diaryof_samuelpepys_feed

Posted by Samuel Pepys

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/21/

Within all day long, helping to put up my hangings in my house in my wife’s chamber, to my great content. In the afternoon I went to speak to Sir J. Minnes at his lodgings, where I found many great ladies, and his lodgings made very fine indeed.

At night to supper and to bed: this night having first put up a spitting sheet, —[?? D.W.] which I find very convenient. This day come the King’s pleasure-boats from Calais, with the Dunkirk money, being 400,000 pistols.

Read the annotations

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/21/

torachan

1. Originally the rain was supposed to start early this morning, but it was clear when I took my morning walk and still clear when I took an after-lunch walk around noon, which was nice. It did start raining sometime in the afternoon (was coming down steadily when I left work) and has not stopped since then, but I'm glad it wasn't rainy the whole day.

2. I feel like I've been making good progress on stuff at work. Still feeling vaguely stressed about the whole thing, but feeling overall more positive about it than last week.

3. Caught Gemma watching me while I was outside the other day.

fred_mouse

This covers August through beginning of November

At least one of the links was from coth; most I have no idea - some of them have been in my 'read later' for a very long time. There were also stories from All of Tor.com’s Original Short Fiction Published in 2022, which I'm guessing I've started working through before, but didn't remember what I'd read previously (18 short stories, 13 novelettes, 1 translation) (and didn't finish this time either)

Loved it!

Smoke and Sweetness by Zhui Ning Chang, from Jan 2025 - gentle, sweet, slice of life with touches of whimsy and sadness, set in a floristry
Fruiting Bodies - Kemi Ashing-Giwa, from Jan 2022 - very much body horror, in a far future on a different planet. Not quite zombies.
The Chronologist by Ian R MacLeod, from Feb 2022 - atmosphere and character and kind of an apocalypse
The Last Truth by Anamaria Curtis, from Feb 2022 - bittersweet, about how how losing oneself a memory at a time leaves nothing behind.

Not bad

Bone by Karl Gallagher, from May 2025 - heavy on the science, clunky on the rest.
If a Digitized Tree Falls by Ken Liu and Caroline M. Yoachim, from Sept 2025 (novelette) - snatches through time, as the ways in which the world is modelled by digital tech changes, and AI assistants evolved. I found myself distracted and unmotivated to finish, although it is beautifully written
Model Collapse by Matthew Kressel, from Oct 2025 - very clever body horror about the AI takeover.

Not for me

Saving the Gleeful Horse - K J Bishop, from March 2010. - creepy. But I managed to get distracted part way through, and then had to come back to finish it.
Synthetic Perennial by Vivianni Glass, from Feb 2022 - normally I like myself some surreal / magic realism details, but I just found this one disorienting. Not for those with medical trauma.
Hush by Mary Anne Mohanraj, from March 2022 - I get what this one is saying, but it is just a tad too real w.r.t fascism and racist supremacy. Unreliable narrator who thinks they are one of the good guys didn't help.
The Long View by Susan Palwick, from April 2022 - this went too close to farce for me. Seemed to be both attempting to be Meaningful and Funny.

DNF

Victory Citrus Is Sweet by Thoriay Dyer, from Sept 2022 - couldn't deal with the narrative voice
Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson - sometimes I'm in the mood for gritty noir cyberpunk, and today is not it.
The Sisters of Saint Nicola of The Almost Perpetual Motion vs the Lurch by Garth Nix, from July 2022 - DNF - While I like Nix's novels, I often bounce from their short fiction, and this was no exception

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Posted by Samuel Pepys

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/20/

All the morning sitting at the office, at noon with Mr. Coventry to the Temple to advise about Field’s, but our lawyers not being in the way we went to St. James’s, and there at his chamber dined, and I am still in love more and more with him for his real worth. I broke to him my desire for my wife’s brother to send him to sea as a midshipman, which he is willing to agree to, and will do it when I desire it. After dinner to the Temple, to Mr. Thurland; and thence to my Lord Chief Baron, Sir Edward Hale’s, and back with Mr. Thurland to his chamber, where he told us that Field will have the better of us; and that we must study to make up the business as well as we can, which do much vex and trouble us: but I am glad the Duke is concerned in it. Thence by coach homewards, calling at a tavern in the way (being guided by the messenger in whose custody Field lies), and spoke with Mr. Smith our messenger about the business, and so home, where I found that my wife had finished very neatly my study with the former hangings of the diningroom, which will upon occasion serve for a fine withdrawing room. So a little to my office and so home, and spent the evening upon my house, and so to supper and to bed.

Read the annotations

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/11/20/

mific

For those of you who like my garden photos, I did a post to

common_nature featuring self-seeded plants in my garden that I enjoy. It's here.

which_chick

The local grocery had 2 lb. bags of broccoli florets for $1.00 each, which is like fifty cents a pound for the broccoli. In this economy, that's a fucking bargain. Obviously, I bought two bags (four pounds) and have been eating a lot of broccoli of late. (I do not like it frozen, it gets soggy and I just... can't.) Triple garlic linguini with steamed broccoli was one of my experimental efforts this week to address the broccoli situation.

Experimental recipes are usually edible, infrequently ... not good but edible, and occasionally outstanding. This one was outstanding.

( What the hell is triple garlic? I am intrigued... )

mllesatine

I learned a few new English idioms yesterday. First: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. In a Reddit thread about someone stealing from his employer. It means that you shouldn't get greedy (or you will be slaughtered). It sounds downright sinister to me.

The other one gave me some trouble because the context didn't help at all. You know this slang or you don't. have a cow - it means "to get upset about something minor" I read it in a fantastic fanfic but it threw me completely because the quote was character A saying to character B "Don't have a cow."

I've been listening to an hour long loop of John Maus' "Keep pushing on" for the past two days (excluding work etc).

Current Music: john maus

torachan

1. Woke up to a mini ant infestation this morning, but thankfully it was the bathroom sink, not the kitchen, so it was much easier to clean up and there wasn't really anything they could actually get into. They didn't seem to come back except for one or two here and there, and haven't appeared anywhere else.

2. We had such a lovely Disney trip this morning. Just exceptionally nice weather and fairly low crowds. Really good food, and lots of characters out and about.

3. Molly was being very tolerant of Ollie wanting to sit next to her. (And Ollie was being a good boy and not pestering, just sitting politely.)

torachan

We went down to DCA around mid-morning for an early lunch before going in to work in the afternoon. It was a really lovely day weather-wise and not too crowded, but once we got to the parking lot and I was looking at the app to make lunch plans, I found that they have reduced the hours of a bunch of eateries, so our choices were more limited than we'd anticipated.

( Read more... )

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Raised By Rats

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Monday 24 November 1662

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Obligatory pony posting

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Sunday 23 November 1662

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Saturday 22 November 1662

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Friday 21 November 1662

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Thursday 20 November 1662

Self-seeded plants in my garden

Experimental dinner: Triple garlic linguini with steamed broccoli

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2025 Disneyland Trip #73 (11/19/25)

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