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ysilme here: Rewrote the first draft for a 3SF fill and posted it; about 200 words.

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food shopping

The weather is delightful right now--sunny and about 22 C/72 F--so I went to Central Square after lunch, for the Monday farmers' market and to buy ice cream.

At the farmers market, I bought Zestar apples--an early apple all three of us like--blackberries, peaches, and a loaf of Hi Rise bakery's "Concord" bread. I then walked over to Toscanini's, but noticed New City Microcreamery en route, and went in. I asked for a taste of the key lime pie ice cream, and was pleased that it tastes like key lime pie and works as ice cream, so I got a scoop and took it outside to eat at a nearby table.

Then to Tosci's, where the board said they had raspberry and sweet cream (among other flavors). I asked for a pint of each, and discovered they were out of raspberry. I asked to taste the mango sticky rice ice cream, which I didn't like. So I just got sweet cream, then walked back to New City for a pint of key lime pie ice cream.

I now have dairy ice cream from four different local ice cream places in my freezer, the other two being Lizzy's (chocolate orgy and black raspberry) and JP Licks (peach). Boston is a good city for ice cream.

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todo/tada

tada for the week

( tada )

New Substack post -- Balancing Act

Sending National Guard soldiers to occupy DC is supposed to distract us from the Epstein files, as FOTUS balances his need to control what is around him with his fear of disclosure of his involvement in pedophilia. But people aren't distracted from his past by his current scramble for cover.

The Food Pantry

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Current Music: Martha, "Sycamore"

You know this city like the back of your hand, but deep roots are holding me down

According to the checkout card tucked into its back cover, the black-boarded, jacketless first edition of Millard Lampell's The Hero (1949) which I just collected this afternoon through interlibrary loan came originally from the Hatfield branch of the now-dissolved Western Massachusetts Regional Library System, whose bookmobile

spatch remembers vividly because it was not the library across the street from one of his childhood homes but the one about a mile up the road. The dates on the card are well within the span of his family's residency. It would be nice to imagine that one of his parents took it out, or at least browsed through it, sometime. The punch line of discovering Lampell as an author is that while I did not in the least recognize his name, I would recognize his voice because along with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Woody Guthrie, he formed the Almanac Singers. It was only later in his career as a screenwriter that he was blacklisted.

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The Disaster Days, by Rebecca Behrens

13-year-old Hannah, who lives on a tiny island off Seattle, is excited for her first babysitting job. Then a giant earthquake hits, cutting the island off from the mainland... and leaving Hannah alone in charge of two kids in a devastated landscape.

Hannah is not having a good day. She was recently diagnosed with asthma, forcing her to drop out of soccer and always carry an inhaler. Her best friend Neha, a soccer star, is now hanging out more with another soccer girl than with Hannah. Hannah forgets to bring her inhaler with her to school, and her mom doesn't turn around the car to get it as Hannah is desperate not to be late. When she arrives for her babysitting job after school, minus her inhaler (no doubt looming ominously on the mantelpiece at home, along with Chekhov's gun), she gets in a huge fight with Neha over text and the girls say they no longer want to be friends...

...just as a giant earthquake hits! Hannah gets her charges, Zoe and Oscar, to huddle under a table (along with their guinea pig) and no one is injured. But the windows break, the house is trashed, and the power, internet, and phones go out. The house is somewhat remote, an all-day walk from the next house. What to do?

Hannah is a pretty realistic 13-year-old. She's generally sensible, but makes some mistakes which are understandable under the circumstances, but have huge repercussions. She enlists the kids to help her search for her phone in the wreckage of the house, and Zoe immediately is severely cut on broken glass. The kids freak out because their mom (along with Hannah's) is on the mainland, and Hannah calms them down by lying that she got a text from their mom saying that she's fine and is coming soon. The next morning, she lets Oscar play on some home playground equipment. Hannah checks the surrounding area, but doesn't check the equipment itself. It's damaged and breaks, and Oscar breaks his leg. So by day one, Hannah is having asthma attacks without her inhaler, Zoe has one arm out of commission, Oscar is totally immobilized, and there's no adults within reach.

Well - this is a HUGE improvement on Trapped. It's well-written and gripping, the events all make sense, and the characterization is fine. It was clearly intended to teach kids what can happen during a big earthquake and how to stay as safe as possible, and the information presented on that is all good.

But - you knew there was a but - as an enjoyable work of children's disaster/survival literature, it falls short of the standards of the old classic Hatchet and the excellent newer series I Survived.

The basic problem with this book is that it has a very narrow emotional range. For the entire book, Hannah is miserable, guilty over her friend breakup and the kids getting hurt, worried about her parents, and desperately trying to keep it together. The kids get hurt so seriously so early on that they never have any fun. Even when Hannah tries to feed them S'Mores to cheer them up, nobody actually likes them because they're not melted!

The I Survived books have much more variety of emotional states and incidents, as typically the actual disaster doesn't happen until at least one-third of the way into the book. The kids have highs and lows, fun moments and despairing moments and terrifying moments. This book is all gloom all the time even before the disaster! Hannah eventually saves everyone, is hailed as a hero, and repairs her friendship, but we don't get that from her inner POV - it's in a transcript of a TV interview with her.

The information provided in the book is very solid, but I would have preferred that it didn't have BOTH kids get injured because of something Hannah does wrong. (That is not realistic! ONE, maybe.) It also would have been a lot more fun to read if the kids' injuries were either less serious or occurred later. The situation is desperate and miserable almost immediately, and just stays that way for the entire book.

Still, there's a lot about the book that's good and there should be an entertaining book that provides earthquake knowledge, so I'm keeping it. But I'm not getting her other book about two girls lost in the woods.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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Check-In Post - Aug 18th 2025

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: Share your favourite crafting tip, if you have one.

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Bundle of Holding: Tiny Dungeon MEGA (from 2023)

An assortment of tabletop roleplaying games from Gallant Knight Games that use the streamlined, minimalist TinyD6 rules.

Bundle of Holding: Tiny Dungeon MEGA (from 2023)

Disney_20in20 • Round 12

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Tvmovie20in20 • Round 19

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type: promotion: event

[Promo] October Review-a-Thon 2025

We are getting closer and closer to October (where is the time going?!) and the [Sign-Up Post] October Review-a-Thon 2025 post is of course still up. Sign-ups will not close until Oct 31, LOL.

This event took place last October, too, and the rules are the same. I'm super excited to see what reviews will be posted!

(It's a low-commitment event: you can drop your sign up at any time, and if you don't manage to post a review on your claimed day(s), there are zero (0) consequences. Just have fun at your desired comfort level!)

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AI scam bots on Dreamwidth

A quick heads up to let people know that the extractive AI spammers/scammers from AO3 seem to have made it over here to Dreamwidth. I received a message from one of them just now, which reads:

Hi, I thoroughly enjoyed your story when I read it. I would love to offer some suggestions that could improve your narrative even further, if that is okay with you. Is it feasible for us to communicate via a different platform?
Email address: karencrabtree98@gmail.com
Discord: karencrabtree_

The account is

karencrab, but I would assume there are others active. This one has only existed for a few days, has made no comments, no posts, nor contributed to a single comm, and has a blank/weirdly inconsistent profile.

I'm going to block the account now, but I don't think there's much more I can do about it (unless anyone is aware of a mechanism for reporting suspected AI bot accounts to Dreamwidth). I would assume this means public posts on Dreamwidth are going to be more directly targeted as sources to train AI tools (although I know that this was happening already).

Please feel free to share this warning post.

(no subject)

With one hand on each far edge, I had to hold my arms chest-height, wide as the frame and stiff as a waltz. Like that, with nothing touching but glove to frame, I held it close as a partner in a formal dance. And two hours later I'd retrace the steps, glide it back into the vault, and close the door.

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Two links, because I feel as if I'm losing my mind

Russia has occupied less than 1 per cent of Ukraine's territory since November 2022.

'[Making "territorial concessions" would mean handing over] a region the Russians have been unable to capture fully since 2014, thanks largely to the powerful system of fortifications there. At the current pace of the Russian army’s advance, it would take them many years to seize full control.

Giving this defense belt up would enable unhindered, rapid advances of Russian equipment and threaten Ukraine’s very existence as a state. And despite breakthroughs in the Donetsk region, they still have not managed to capture cities protected by fortifications. According to a recent report by the Institute for the Study of War, capturing the cities in the fortress belt would likely take several years and cost Russia significant human lives and material losses.'

In other words, anyone presenting the current state of Russia's invasion as a stunningly overwhelming military force is either ill-informed, or presenting a false picture in order to push a particular agenda. This is not to say that life as a soldier or civilian in Ukraine is particularly easy right now, but it's important to keep these facts in mind.

'Territory' is not lines on a map, on an empty piece of paper: it is the people who live there, and 'territorial concessions' is a conveniently bloodless euphemism for condemning hundreds of thousands of people to totalitarianism and human rights abuses without justice.

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Dreams and Mayhem: Hodge Podge

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In which our heroine over-thinks self-sacrifice for fannish idols

Emboldened by drinking Iron Tusk (the Oort Cloud Mariner was off), and feeling metal as a sidequence, I have unwisely decided to share my thoughts on the tendency to handmaidenly self-sacrifice: if you see me walking down the street, try not to cry each time we meet, just scroll on by....

Warning for oblique mention of suicide by self-sacrifice.

I was thinking about places we tour as spectators, as differentiated from times and places we might choose to live in.

Which in turn led me to wonder about fandom, and how much human behaviour has or hasn't been modified by the wider availability of (more-or-less accurate) information through mass media.

For example, many human cultures used to indulge in the supposedly voluntary mass sacrifice of young people at the death and burial of a cultural idol. Not only a loving partner, whose motive might be more understandable to us, but also multiple handmaidens (of any sex/gender). And I'm sitting here idly wondering if such spectacular "high status" (i.e. resource-hoarding) funerals were still de rigueur in our contemporary global cross-culture then how many young women would want to sacrifice themselves as a public display of grief at the death of a mass media idol or in the belief they'd accompany him to an enticing afterlife (as historically it was usually hims - or perhaps we have achieved equality of exploitation)? Would being one amongst hundreds or thousands of ghostly handmaidens, instead of a select few, encourage or discourage potential victims of self-sacrifice? Would their families and societies encourage or discourage them from joining the ghostly horde / hoard?

What about young warriors sacrificing themselves en masse at the funerals of their dead idols? As far as I know there isn't even a fashion for mass sacrificing virtual gaming characters to honour a fallen leader....

When did humanity change its mind about this previously widespread fashion for terminal self-sacrifice and why? Or is it merely better disguised now as millions willingly throw their lives onto the pyres of billionaires? I dunno, but I am interested in whether a fashion for young people to mass sacrifice themselves for a dead idol could ever return.

Pinter's "Old Times" at Soulpepper

https://operaramblings.blog/2025/08/18/old-times/

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Multifandom: Fic In A Box Nominations Sign Ups Open

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Crossing the Finish Line of the Newbery Project

Drumroll, please! On Saturday morning, I took Dorothy Lathrop’s The Fairy Circus along on my morning Starbucks run. I finished the book, and with it I have completed the Newbery project!

I spent the rest of the day in a whirlwind of festivity: a trip to the downtown library and downtown farmers market (with side trips to the card store, the artist’s gallery, and the bookstore), took a nap, went to the other library and to my favorite bookstore Von’s, and then returned home to throw myself a little tea party where I ate an entire salted caramel fudge mini-pie from the farmers market and read my new library book, Rachel Bertsche’s The Kids Are in Bed: Finding Time for Yourself in the Chaos of Parenting.

I read this partly because I’ve been a fan of Bertsche’s since her MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend, and partly because I enjoying parenting books, which is perhaps rather odd in a non-parent. Also this is really a parenting book but a book about how to find time for yourself in and around parenting. One tip I think is probably useful for anyone: Bertsche suggests making a short list of things you like to do, so that if you find yourself with some unexpected free time you can actually use it doing something you enjoy and find rejuvenating, rather than doing chores and/or mindlessly scrolling your most depressing social media feed.

And then I was off to one final bookstore for the evening! A wonderful day.

I still have reviews to write of my last couple of Newbery books, and then some wrap-up posts about the whole project. Right now I’ve got posts about the Newberys by the Decade, Nonsense Books in the Newbery, and SFF in the Newbery, and I’m planning that long-teased post about The Problem of Tomboys (actually probably two posts, one about the 1930s and one about the rest).

Are there any other Newbery posts people would be interested in seeing?