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The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, July 08, 2026 has been posted.
I just spent time with family in Alexandria. While there, we did a night time drive around the National Mall for the west coasters who don't think of it as the backyard they don't have to mow. And we went to the National Gallery of Art on the hottest day of the year.
Before we go any further, I want to remind everyone that I spent large chunks of time in Berlin before the wall came down while my parents were living there. I know what an occupied city looks and feels like.
Washington, DC is an occupied city. It was worse than Berlin in some ways because the barricades were so raw and there was no way to get through them, unlike Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. (True story, I didn't recognize Alexanderplatz in a movie even though the setting felt familiar because I'd never seen it with people in it before.)
There is a tension. I wish I could say that was the worst part. There were National Guard everywhere, armed, and that's a form of intimidation I didn't expect, at least not so flagrantly.
We found a legitimate way to walk on the Capitol Grounds after dark, and look back toward the Potomac, but so much of what I think of as the "natural" view was blocked. It's always fun when west coasters see lightning bugs for the first time. That was a lovely moment with them.
We drove around some more, trying to find a place to stop and let them see the Lincoln Memorial from the front -- bless the cousin who volunteered to drive and was willing to let us off and pick us up -- but it proved to be impossible.
Passing the White House meant the missing East Wing felt like a broken tooth in a familiar smile.
And dear heavens, the projections on the Washington Monument which didn't look as good as the light show at Disney World and the Ferris wheel plonked in the center of the Mall were tacky beyond belief.
Inside the National Gallery, it felt like home. I was thrilled to show off my favorite works and find the George de la Tour painting for my sister (he's her favorite artist). There was a small Mary Cassatt exhibition in a room off of the impressionists which made me very happy.
Outside, I expected the Gestapo to ask me for my papers.
From 1978 to 1989, I spent a decade in Europe. Toward the end of that time, I realized that I was fed up with having to worry that I'd be stopped and not have my ID and proof of support on me. I was careful, but after so many years, it felt heavy for some reason. I visited my folks in Boston and forgot my wallet when I went for a walk and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that I didn't have to delay everyone and scramble back. If you're not driving, you're not required to have ID on you. (That doesn't mean that it's not a good idea to carry ID, but it's nice that it's not required.) And for the record, I have had the police ask for my papers while living in Europe. Three times in 10 years isn't bad, but, technically, it's not required in the U.S.
On the news, I've seen masked people carrying Confederate Battle flags intimidating the Metro. This is wrong, deeply, deeply wrong.
Before we go any further, I want to remind everyone that I spent large chunks of time in Berlin before the wall came down while my parents were living there. I know what an occupied city looks and feels like.
Washington, DC is an occupied city. It was worse than Berlin in some ways because the barricades were so raw and there was no way to get through them, unlike Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. (True story, I didn't recognize Alexanderplatz in a movie even though the setting felt familiar because I'd never seen it with people in it before.)
There is a tension. I wish I could say that was the worst part. There were National Guard everywhere, armed, and that's a form of intimidation I didn't expect, at least not so flagrantly.
We found a legitimate way to walk on the Capitol Grounds after dark, and look back toward the Potomac, but so much of what I think of as the "natural" view was blocked. It's always fun when west coasters see lightning bugs for the first time. That was a lovely moment with them.
We drove around some more, trying to find a place to stop and let them see the Lincoln Memorial from the front -- bless the cousin who volunteered to drive and was willing to let us off and pick us up -- but it proved to be impossible.
Passing the White House meant the missing East Wing felt like a broken tooth in a familiar smile.
And dear heavens, the projections on the Washington Monument which didn't look as good as the light show at Disney World and the Ferris wheel plonked in the center of the Mall were tacky beyond belief.
Inside the National Gallery, it felt like home. I was thrilled to show off my favorite works and find the George de la Tour painting for my sister (he's her favorite artist). There was a small Mary Cassatt exhibition in a room off of the impressionists which made me very happy.
Outside, I expected the Gestapo to ask me for my papers.
From 1978 to 1989, I spent a decade in Europe. Toward the end of that time, I realized that I was fed up with having to worry that I'd be stopped and not have my ID and proof of support on me. I was careful, but after so many years, it felt heavy for some reason. I visited my folks in Boston and forgot my wallet when I went for a walk and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that I didn't have to delay everyone and scramble back. If you're not driving, you're not required to have ID on you. (That doesn't mean that it's not a good idea to carry ID, but it's nice that it's not required.) And for the record, I have had the police ask for my papers while living in Europe. Three times in 10 years isn't bad, but, technically, it's not required in the U.S.
On the news, I've seen masked people carrying Confederate Battle flags intimidating the Metro. This is wrong, deeply, deeply wrong.
The Girl Genius comic for Monday, July 06, 2026 has been posted.
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Hey Boston folks! Copy-pasting from Reddit:
The Air Conditioned NESFA [New England Science Fiction Association] Clubhouse (504 Medford St, Somerville) IS open today Friday July 3 from 12 noon to 9/10 pm. Feel free to stop by and read a book, grab a snack or cold one (water and soft drinks), or just hang out. You don’t need to be a member.
It will also be open:
*Saturday 4 July from 12 noon to 6 pm for Library or just hanging out & 6 pm on for Video Night
*Sunday 5 July from 12 noon to 9/10 pm for Gaming, Library, or just hanging out
Again, you don’t need to be a member.
Stay cool, hot neighbors!
The Air Conditioned NESFA [New England Science Fiction Association] Clubhouse (504 Medford St, Somerville) IS open today Friday July 3 from 12 noon to 9/10 pm. Feel free to stop by and read a book, grab a snack or cold one (water and soft drinks), or just hang out. You don’t need to be a member.
It will also be open:
*Saturday 4 July from 12 noon to 6 pm for Library or just hanging out & 6 pm on for Video Night
*Sunday 5 July from 12 noon to 9/10 pm for Gaming, Library, or just hanging out
Again, you don’t need to be a member.
Stay cool, hot neighbors!
The Girl Genius comic for Friday, July 03, 2026 has been posted.
The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, July 01, 2026 has been posted.
The Girl Genius comic for Monday, June 29, 2026 has been posted.
Yesterday was my daughter's birthday, so after dinner the girls decorated the dining area with balloons, banners, etc, and we had birthday cake. The cake was made from a gluten-free cake mix and to make it vegan*, my son in law mixed in tofu instead of eggs, oil, etc - whatever else is normally mixed into a cake mix - and it turned out really well. I think it was some of the best gluten free cake I've had.
*Some members of the family are allergic to dairy and some are allergic to eggs so everything is vegan. Son in law and I are the only ones with no allergies.
The girls' cousin isn't here yet. I hope she is able to come this afternoon, because if she doesn't come the girls will be very disappointed. (She lives in NYC so it's easy enough for her to get on a train even for just a short visit.)... It now appears she will be here around 4 pm.
*Some members of the family are allergic to dairy and some are allergic to eggs so everything is vegan. Son in law and I are the only ones with no allergies.
The girls' cousin isn't here yet. I hope she is able to come this afternoon, because if she doesn't come the girls will be very disappointed. (She lives in NYC so it's easy enough for her to get on a train even for just a short visit.)... It now appears she will be here around 4 pm.
It was pouring with rain when I woke up this morning, so I postponed my walk until after breakfast. It was still dampish outside but not actually raining.
The girls' oldest and favourite cousin is arriving later today to stay a few days and the girls are very excited. She is about 28 and has a lot of patience with them. I'm sure I'll barely see them as long as she's here.
The girls' oldest and favourite cousin is arriving later today to stay a few days and the girls are very excited. She is about 28 and has a lot of patience with them. I'm sure I'll barely see them as long as she's here.
The Girl Genius comic for Friday, June 26, 2026 has been posted.
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Folks may have noticed that the site has been slow for logged-out users over the last while. This is partly because we separate traffic by logged-in, "logged out but have visited the site before", and "logged out, never visited the site before" and assign the fewest resources to the last category (because we're pretty confident the overwhelming majority of it is bot and scraper traffic, even if it's often impossible to say for sure). The flood of garbage traffic is a plague and a scourge the entire internet is dealing with, and it's hitting small sites the hardest as operators get better and better at cloaking their requests to look like real, authentic use. We long ago hit the point where adding more resources is a possible solution (because they just eat them up as soon as we do), and splitting traffic lets us keep the site usable for our actual users without wasting too much server power on garbage.
We've now, lucky us, reached the point where the "logged out, have never visited the site before" path is just flooded all the time, and the "logged out but have visited the site before" path is suffering some of the overflow. We've made some changes to the routing to try to improve things for logged out users who have visited the site before and keep it at "it may be a little bit slow, but at least it works" instead of "it keeps timing out", and we've seen some improvements, but if you're accustomed to browsing the site while logged out, I'm really sorry but it may continue to be a little miserable.
You will get the fastest page loads and the best performance by browsing the site logged in. If you are having trouble loading the front page to log in, bookmark the direct login page. We can't route the front page to the "more power" server pool, because it's a common target for garbage traffic, but we've switched /login over to "more power" and we'll try to keep it there as long as we can unless it starts getting slammed, too.
We've now, lucky us, reached the point where the "logged out, have never visited the site before" path is just flooded all the time, and the "logged out but have visited the site before" path is suffering some of the overflow. We've made some changes to the routing to try to improve things for logged out users who have visited the site before and keep it at "it may be a little bit slow, but at least it works" instead of "it keeps timing out", and we've seen some improvements, but if you're accustomed to browsing the site while logged out, I'm really sorry but it may continue to be a little miserable.
You will get the fastest page loads and the best performance by browsing the site logged in. If you are having trouble loading the front page to log in, bookmark the direct login page. We can't route the front page to the "more power" server pool, because it's a common target for garbage traffic, but we've switched /login over to "more power" and we'll try to keep it there as long as we can unless it starts getting slammed, too.
I've just finished a book in which a couple who broke up two years previously find themselves on a road trip the length of Britain in a Mini with three other people. I used to own a Mini in the early 70s. I once took three other people and their luggage from my home town to Perth, Western Australia, a distance about the same as the people in the book were driving. That car was so small that we had to have the two backseat passengers get in first and then we piled luggage around and between them, so I can't imagine five people plus luggage fitting into a Mini. I know Minis now are slightly bigger than the one I owned, but this scenario stills seems implausible to me, and it bugged me the whole time I was reading the book. (The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary.)
We still haven't seen or heard the cat, who has now been missing since Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning.
My daughter has been doing quite a lot of gardening lately, with intermittent help from the girls. She's just been telling me that she thinks Aria has been doing "guerilla gardening", as she has discovered a lot of tiny plants coming up in some new raised beds where she hadn't planted anything yet because she was waiting to put more soil in them. She suspects that Aria found some pumpkin seeds she was saving and planted them in those beds. (A *lot* of seeds very close together - not optimal for pumpkins.) Aria already has her own flower bed where she is growing zinnias.
My daughter has been doing quite a lot of gardening lately, with intermittent help from the girls. She's just been telling me that she thinks Aria has been doing "guerilla gardening", as she has discovered a lot of tiny plants coming up in some new raised beds where she hadn't planted anything yet because she was waiting to put more soil in them. She suspects that Aria found some pumpkin seeds she was saving and planted them in those beds. (A *lot* of seeds very close together - not optimal for pumpkins.) Aria already has her own flower bed where she is growing zinnias.
It looks like nobody's previously mentioned this, so...
There's now a Somerville Discord, for those who like that platform. It's been around for a year or two, and is a pretty bustling place, with almost two thousand members and a bunch of channels, including sections for the various neighborhoods as well as specialized bulletin boards, and channels to discuss all sorts of topics of community interest. Pretty much anything interesting in town is likely to be talked about there.
Not super high volume, but fairly busy -- as so often for Discord, I don't recommend trying to follow every channel there -- and a generally fun and friendly place.
If you'd like to join, here's the official invitation -- come on by!