redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
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[sticky entry] Sticky: Welcome

( Sep. 4th, 2013 08:44 am)
Hi. This is an online substitute for a paper journal, as well as a place to talk to people, so a lot of what's here is quotidian stuff about my life and place. These days, that's more exploring the Seattle area than what's in bloom right now in my corner of the world. As of March 2016, "place" is the Boston area: we moved to Arlington, Mass., in March 2016, then Somerville a year and a half later. I'm now living in Boston with @cattitude and @adrian_turtle, still figuring out my way around Brighton and other parts of Boston, and how long it actually takes to get to my various medical and other appointments on the other side of the Charles. Some of the basics about me are in my userinfo; the userpic with this sticky post is a photo of me, taken in 2007, in case you're wondering whether I'm the redbird you know from elsewhere.

Long ago when the net was flat, I spent a bunch of time on Usenet, mostly rassef and alt.polyamory; I did some of my growing up in science fiction fandom, which in my case meant writing in/for a lot of apas. If you don't know why I subscribed to your journal, we probably have friends in common, and either one of them said "this person is cool" or you posted interesting comments, and I looked at your journal and found it interesting.

Anyone is welcome to read and comment on my journal (though I screen comments on some posts). I do post some things locked and/or filtered. I am more likely to give access to people I know, either previously (online or off) or from interactions here. If we know each other but I might not recognize your username, please leave a note here so I can make the connection.

If we don't already know each other, welcome, and please introduce yourself. I'm screening all comments to this post, so you can tell me "Hi, it's $old_friend" without other people seeing the connection between your username here and other names or handles you use. Or comment on other posts, and I'll get some feeling for what you're like.

There are a half-dozen access-locked posts in here, none recent, with nude photos of me (all tagged "nudes"). I grant access to most people who ask (and many who don't), and those aren't the posts I consider private.

I generally use a cut tag for details of exercise or (rarer) body size/shape posts, and I tend to avoid other people's discussion of weight and dieting. By request, I'll be cut-tagging discussions of covid masks. If there are other things you would like similar warnings about, let me know. (I am assuming the current level of cut-tagging on exercise is okay for everyone reading this journal; if not, let me know and I'll see what I can do to address that.) I also use cut tags for things that even I don't find very interesting, but may need to look up later: Dreamwidth as external memory.

I'm (still) posting about politics. I'm not cut-tagging those posts, but I am going to try to label the entries that are entirely or mostly about politics, rather than drop a paragraph about calling my senators in between discussions of out-of-town visitors and cucumbers, in case your self-care means you need to rake a break from reading about politics.

I'm also still posting about the coronavirus pandemic, how I'm dealing with the situation, etc. Most of those posts are tagged with "COVID-19," "life during covid-19," or "the new normal" (or "the new normal?") and some are also tagged "coronavirus"

[last updated July 17, 2024]
redbird: apple-shaped ice on a tree branch (ghost apple)
( Sep. 6th, 2025 11:01 pm)
We bought a few Swiss gourmet apples at the farmers market on Thursday, because [personal profile] adrian_turtle likes them, and I like trying new (or new-to-me) apples.

I tried one this afternoon. It was OK, but nothing special: crisp, moderately juicy, and tarter than I generally like. I thought [personal profile] cattitude might like it, because he likes tart apples, but his verdict is that there wasn't enough flavor there, though what there was, was good.

I'm going to leave the other two for Adrian, and eat Zestars; we bought some of those yesterday.
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redbird: full bookshelves and table in a library (books)
( Sep. 3rd, 2025 07:11 pm)
[personal profile] cattitude and [personal profile] adrian_turtle finished reading The Prisoner of Zenda--the original swash-buckling Ruritanian romance-- aloud to me and each other. We all had a lot of fun with it. We may (or may not) go back and read the sequel at some point, but not right away.

I also read The Birding Dictionary, by Rosemary Mosco: a humor book about bird and bird-watching, in the format of a dictionary. Cattitude, who borrowed this from the library, seemed to find it funnier than I did.

Current reading:

The Winged Histories, by Sofia Samatar. This is eight loosely connected stories, each with a different narrator. I'm enjoying it, but having trouble settling in to read much at a time. The ebook is now overdue at the library, so I am carefully not synching my kindle until I finish reading it.
Governor Healey has overridden the CDC restrictions, and authorized pharmacists to give the covid vaccine to everyone over the age of 5 (younger children will have to get it from their pediatricians).

I heard about this first from my state senator's office: I emailed over the weekend to ask him to work on fixing this, so his staff knew I was interested. There's an article in the Globe, but pay-walled: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/03/metro/healey-covid-booster-massachusetts-trump-kennedy-vaccine/
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Sep. 3rd, 2025 06:12 pm)
First: we're all fine.

I got a phone call this afternoon from someone at the company we rent a storage unit from. She was calling to tell me that a construction crew doing something on the lot next door had last control of one of their machines, which breached the wall of our storage unit.

She was calling to tell me that, and to ask my permission to cut the lock on the door, so they can go inside and move everything to an undamaged unit. She wanted that ASAP, so they can start work tomorrow at 7 a.m.

I was on the bus when my phone rang, so while I could give her my approval right away, when she asked for my drivers license/state ID number, I told het I'd call her back, the information was hard to read on a moving bus

So, our plans for tomorrow now involve getting up early(ish) and going to Medford to look things over, and so the company can give us keys for the new lock.

I'm glad the phone was in my pocket when she called: otherwise I might not have noticed and listened to the voicemail before their office closed for the day.
Because Bobby Brainworm is out to get us:

RFK Jr blocked CDC approval of the updated covid vaccine. There are three states where pharmacists can't legally give a vaccine without CDC approval: Massachusetts (where I live), Nevada, and New Mexico. In another 13 states, pharmacists can give the vaccine but only with a prescription, and CVS isn't shipping the vaccine to pharmacies in any of these 16 states.

Note: the vaccine is legally available in every state, because the relevant FDA committee did approve it, but some of us will have to get it from a doctor's office, which will be more of a hassle even when it’s possible.

P.S. Walgreen’s too, per a comment at Universal Hub.

Those are state laws, so call your state representatives and governor and tell them to change it.

“Massachusetts )
I just had a reassuringly boring dental visit. I called yesterday because I'd been having pain on and off for the previous three days, and they gave me an appointment for this morning.

I felt much better last night and basically OK this morning, but I still wanted the dentist to check in case there was a problem—intermittent symptoms can be hard to diagnose. The dentist looked inside my mouth, poked in a few places, and took two X-rays, finding nothing wrong. His best guess is that something was caught between my gum and bone, and I got it out by cleaning my teeth yesterday; I don’t know why the previous three days of brushing and flossing hadn’t done the job.

The dentist did see a little tenderness in the area that had been hurting, and wrote me a prescription for something to rinse with. Other than that, call if there are further problems, or come back in three months for my usual cleaning.

I am pleased with the outcome: it stopped hurting, and the dentist confirmed that there's nothing wrong, so I don’t need unpleasant and possibly expensive dental work.

The dentist said to hold the prescription rinse in my mouth for “a few seconds,” then rinse with water, and I only need to rinse that side of the month. The printed prescription label says 30 seconds and not to rinse for 30 minutes afterwards, which I assume are the standard instructions for this medication.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Aug. 26th, 2025 08:43 am)
Another collection of comments to other people’s journals:

[personal profile] elise was asking about "ways to learn to wanna when you're gonna hafta"

I said:

Sometimes I get things done by reminding myself that I don't have to want to do them, as long as they get done. Meaning that I'm not going to enjoy the task, but maybe I want to have done it, or maybe I'm leaning on bits of habit. That mostly works for small things: it's easier to think "don't have to like it, as long as it gets done" about relatively short things, like brushing my teeth, than about anything longer or more complicated.

Typing this, I realize that this is something I mostly do/need to do late in the day. Even with meds, I run out of executive function well before I run out of day (or evening).


[personal profile] cosmolinguist posted about feeling like everyone else hasn't just stopped talking about the pandemic, they're not thinking about it, and he quoted his manager saying "something like 'You're the only one who remembers covid.' Not in an accusing way or anything, just making an ob. Clearly based on the fact that I'm still masking and I've never seen any of my colleagues wear a mask at in-person gatherings."

My comment was:
As I said [on Mastodon], it reminds me of something Siderea posted about in 2018-19: a hundred years ago, in the 1920s, people didn't mention the Spanish Flu epidemic, even though flu was still killing a significant number of people every year (as it still is today). People did write about World War I, and men who died there, and there were novels about the young women who were never going to marry because of the gender imbalance, but it looked from 2018 as though there was an agreement or decision not to talk about the pandemic.

Six years ago, that seemed odd; four years ago, I was deliberately posting almost every day just so I would have a record of what those first months of the covid pandemic had been like.



A comment to [personal profile] buhrger, who lives in Alberta, about finding a new doctor:

It's not just your area, or province, that is short on doctors who are accepting new patients. A couple of months ago, we were talking to a friend of Adrian's, Ruth; they are both dissatisfied with their current doctor, but Ruth has had trouble finding another that she can get to reasonably. Oddly, I am seeing a nurse practitioner in that practice, and am entirely happy to keep seeing her, and not just because I don't want to roll the dice on someone else taking me and my combination of medical things seriously while still taking as given that I am a competent adult.


Comment to [personal profile] ambyr’s post about characters with an annoying sort of genre-awareness:

I haven’t read any Moreno-Garcia, but that shape of genre-awareness feels all wrong to me. I'm fine with characters having no idea they're in a horror novel, or a detective story, or whatever. And I'm fine with characters being aware if it's something like "if he's really a vampire, we should make sure all the doors are locked, buy some garlic, and not invite anyone inside," or with "there's no such thing as a vampire, what is this person really hiding?"

For example, I'm amused by the Terry Pratchett books where the characters know that million-to-one shots often work, so they're carefully trying to contrive those long odds against themselves before trying to do something like shoot a dragon. For me, that works in part because it's a given that the Discworld runs partly on Narrativium, and is out at the far end of some sort of probability curve.

"Don't separate the party" is a fiction-flavored way of saying :don't wander off" or "we should stay together" that doesn't require us to think we're actually in a work of fiction--but I would be annoyed by a book where the characters routinely said thet, and then someone ran off without saying anything or taking useful equipment entirely because the plot required it.


#burger and I were talking about (not) carrying cash:

If I’m out and about (not just going for a walk in the neighborhood) it’s usually for some sort of errand, and even if the main goal is to pick up a library book I’ll be passing shops and it often makes sense to go inside: maybe this branch of CVS has the specific earplugs I’m looking for, maybe the supermarket will have good berries.

That’s separate from the fact that I carry cash and credit card in the same wallet as my ID and other useful cards including my transit pass. Some of that is just-in-case planning: if one kind of thing goes wrong, I may need ny health insurance card. If I’m picking up certain prescriptions, they want me to show ID.

But mostly, having enough cash to get home in case I lose, or someone steals, my wallet is an old, ingrained habit. Once upon a time, that meant always having a subway token and a coin for a pay phone. Now, I keep a $5 bill in my daypack, and one in each of my coats that has a zipper pocket. It’s a firm enough habit that the daypack also has a Canadian $5 bill, just in case. (I didn't put a five-pound note in my pack when we were in London. Maybe I should have.)
I joined [personal profile] adrian_turtle this afternoon for a One Million Rising gathering/training session on zoom, led by one of her comrades from Talmud study. This was 90 minutes, distilling or summarizin six hours of training Aliza did recently.

There was less new information and ideas than I'd hoped for, but I'm glad I did it. I had nothing else specific to do with that chunk of time, and it didn't take away energy from some other form of activism. (In fact, I had called my congresswoman and senators half an hour earlier, while Adrian and [personal profile] cattitude were out shopping.)

Aliza presented some of the material from a specifically Jewish viewpoint/context, including that this organizing and resistance work could be part of preparing for the High Holidays. I'm not observant, but introspection is a useful activity.

I am now on the One Million Rising email list, and will see if anything interesting comes of that.
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redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Aug. 18th, 2025 05:29 pm)
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.
redbird: full bookshelves and table in a library (books)
( Aug. 14th, 2025 10:13 am)
I read a bunch while I was in Montreal, then got home and couldn't find my notes on what I'd read, so this is sketchier than it should have been.

The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett: this is both a fantasy and a mystery novel, and I think worked well as both. The world-building is interesting and unusual, with hints of a lot more than the narrator has reason to mention in telling this story. The mystery is twisty and full of questions about people's motivations. Definitely recommended. Based on some discussion on Discord, I'm glad to know there's a sequel, but not racing to read it.

Jellyfish Have No Ears, by Adèle Rosenfeld, is a novel told by a woman who has been hard of hearing since childhood, and is now losing the remains of her hearing, and trying to decide whether to get a cochlear implant. At least two of the characters are figments of the narrator's imagination. Interesting, but it felt like the story stopped too soon. I think I grabbed this for the "book in translation" square on my Boston library summer reading bingo card.

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox, by Lois McMaster Bujold: a new Penric and Desdemona fantasy novella. I liked it, but there's enough ongoing plot arc that I wouldn't start here.

The World Walk, by Tom Turcich: Memoir, by someone who decided at 17 that he wanted to walk around the world, and starts on the journey after finishing college. He has the advantage of a supportive family, and he also mentions some of the ways that the trip is easier for him because he's American. The travelogue is mostly about people, even when he's also talking about the sky from the Atacama Desert, or the interesting foods he eats while traveling. His planned route isn't literally around the world on foot, but he meant to walk on all seven continents. Instead, the section on Asia and Australia is foreshadowed by the celebration of New Year's Day 2020. Overall, an upbeat book. despite that, health issues, and encounters with hostile police and other officials.

So You Want to Be a Wizard, by Diane Duane: reread of a young adult fantasy novel. picked up from Emmet's bookshelf after I ran out of things I wanted to read on my kindle. I enjoyed rereading it.

I'm now partway through John Wiswell's Wearing the Lion, a retelling of the Heracles legend, because I had it on my kindle (shared by [personal profile] cattitude) and needed something for the flight home from Montreal on Tuesday. The characterization is oddly flat, for a first-person narrative.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Aug. 13th, 2025 01:49 pm)
I came home yesterday afternoon, and spent yesterday enjoying the air conditioning and catching up on some PT that requires equipment I didn't take with me to Montreal, like a foam roller.

I woke up in time to get outside before it got too hot; conveniently, Adrian came back from a walk when I was about ready to leave, and decided to come to the store with me. I enjoyed the company, and two people can carry more groceries than one, so we now have a small watermelon, a box of lettuce, blueberries, tahini, blackberry jam, and non-dairy ice cream.

[personal profile] cattitude and I played Scrabble yesterday, and I've been doing other ordinary things like combing the long-haired cat and taking out recycling.

It's hot outside today (still), but the kitchen was cool enough at noon for me to make oatmeal for lunch. Adrian made a frittata when we got back from the store this morning, for tonight's supper.
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redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Aug. 10th, 2025 01:10 pm)
It is too hot here to do much, alas. Friday was OK, but it was too hot yesterday for me to eant to go out—possibly doable, but sitting outside for lunch would have been unpleasant— and it’s not forecast to improve until after I leave.


So mostly I am sitting in the only air conditioned room in the apartment, reading. This isn’t exactly bad, but it doesn’t feel worth the trip, in terms of either dollars or the hassle of traveling.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Aug. 8th, 2025 03:36 pm)
I'm visiting [personal profile] rysmiel for a few days. The trip up was borin, which is good: anything exciting would probably be bad news, or at least make you late for dinner.

It is going to be hot over the weekend, so we went out for a relatively early brunch today, so we could sit almost-outdoors at Juliette et Chocolat and eat crepes. We then walked around Jean Talon market, where I bought plums, blackberries, and a cucumber.

I have np real plans for the next few days, which is fine.
If anyone wants to call RFK Jr. to complain about him not funding vaccines, and specifically about mRNA vaccines, his office phone number is 202-690-7000. I called during office hours (8:30-5 Eastern time) and got voicemail. The message asked for a phone number, and claimed someone would call me back.

If anyone wants a script, my message was:

My name is Vicki Rosenzweig. I’m calling from Boston, to demand that the secretary restore funding for MRNA vaccines. He must make the fall covid and flu boosters available to everyone. I’m immune-compromised, and my safety depends on my family being vaccinated and not giving me a virus. My phone number is [your number here]

I got the idea and phone number from a comment by [personal profile] threemeninaboat on [personal profile] sonia's journal. (I also posted a version of this to [community profile] thisfinecrew)
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redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Aug. 3rd, 2025 04:35 pm)
Of local interest: JP Licks has fresh peach ice cream.

They didn't make any last year, because there was no local peach harvest, and I'm ery glad to see it this year: they make really good peach ice cream. Not all their flavors are as good as this, and I shop there primarily for this and the cucumber ice cream, when those are available.
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The three of us went to a play tonight: As You Like It, on Boston Common, presented by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. My beloveds bought seats in "tall" (normal-height) chairs for me and Cattitude, and a shorter chair for Adrian; the company sells a few of these in advance, an rents out additional short chairs while supplies last, for people who don't want to sit on the ground, which is free.

The weather was excellent for this, except that I was underdressed because it cooled off sooner than I'd expected. At intermission, I went over to the merchandise booth and bought a blanket. The blankets are intended mostly for sitting on, but I wrapped it around myself, over my hoodie, and draped it over my legs for warmth.

It's a good production, in a straightforward way. I liked the use of music, and the clowning and the choreographed fight scenes were good.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Jul. 30th, 2025 10:07 pm)
I got Cattitude to disconnect my old Windows PC from the peripherals, move it out of the way, and put the MacBook in its place instead.

Moving over is being more annoying than I expected. Some of that is that I don't remember offhand where I left some files. But I also spent a bunch of time wrestling with the Mail app, which decided for no apparent reason that the server was offline. Restarting the machine didn't help, and then the problem went away on its own.

Also, the displays for just about everything have too little contrast, and the text is too small. I thought I'd found a way to change that for everything, but apparently not, so I've only done a few.

I'm probably done for tonight. I have an appointment to get my teeth cleaned early tomorrow afternoon, and I may not work on this further until I get home afterwards.
This was the quarterly check-in so she can refill the Ritalin prescription, and cover anything else non-urgent.

I talked about how my gut is doing, and that I'm trying to reduce my use of naproxen (and NSAIDs generally) at the advice of the GI doctor. So far, that has meant waiting a little while before taking a naproxen because something hurts, and not taking it preventively for short walks. Airports, yes.

Carmen said there aren't a lot of good options, and recommended a turmeric supplement that someone she used to work for, who also did Ayurvedic medicine, recommended. I expressed some general skepticism, and specifically how much turmeric people had to eat to benefit. The recommendation is for a supplement that you tuck in next to your gum, so it's absorbed directly into the bloodstream. Carmen said "you can get it on Amazon," and Adrian pointed out after the visit that I should check the inactive ingredients carefully.

She also asked about my breathing, and I told her that recently, I've coughed up less phlegm after using the flutter valve, without having more trouble breathing. Less crap in my lungs is good, of course, and this means I won't worry much about skipping the flutter valve for things like travel and dental work. However, I'm basically sticking to the same twice-a-day schedule at least until the next time I see the lung doctor.

I also told Carmen about the strawberry allergy, and what symptoms I'd noted. I mentioned that I'm also probably allergic to stevia, and she made a note of both allergies.

The next appointment, in about three months, is for a physical exam, so longer and in person. At 1:30, so I can get lunch in Davis Square, weather allowing.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
( Jul. 28th, 2025 05:13 pm)
I just got off the phone with a (genuinely) helpful person at Amalgamated Bank.

I've been talking to them in order to close a joint account in my and my mother's names, and the bank told me in June that the easiest way to do this would be to withdraw all the money and then have them close the account. In order to do that, I had to set up online banking, but only after adding my phone number to the account, which I did in June. Apparently the reason I couldn't log in to the online account after setting it up was that I'd written the password down wrong.

The person at the bank reset my password for me, and then told me how to link this account to an account at another bank. I'm waiting for the test deposits to hit my account, which may take a few days. After than, I can transfer the rest of the money.

Also, I got up in time to go for a walk this morning, to the grocery store and back, before it got too hot. It's a hot day in July, so the six things I bought included ice cream, Italian ices, and fresh blueberries.
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