shreena

(by which I mean, A very bravely ventured back to B&Q again, this time DID get The Goods, aaaaaaaand then discovered that even cut down they didn't fit in the car so they still needed to be attached to the roof rack with ratchet straps--)

we have achieved PROOF that the windows CLOSE when they have ratchet straps slung around both TOP and BOTTOM

we have a house at 26.7°C and an outside world at 26.1°C and it's time to go to bed

[Gru's plan goes here]

-- but hey, maybe at least we'll manage to discourage it from getting significantly warmer in here? and maybe I'll wake up early enough to open the house up usefully while we're still below 20°C tomorrow morning?

So next/this year I'm assigned to Wimbledon, a kind of apprenticeship or internship where hopefully I will learn how to actually do the job of a rabbi as a whole, rather than individual pieces of it. They have asked me to write an article introducing myself for their magazine. And I'm really struggling to write something not boring; what I have reads like a list of the places I've lived, worked and volunteered with the Jewish community, like a very pedestrian covering letter. So, if you were a member of a synagogue and there was a new intern about to join, what would you want to know about them? I've included the (slightly redacted) draft below the cut.

( this is boring even to me and I'm the subject )

One of my next year teachers has set us for our pre-class homework over the summer "read a book". Like, literally pick up a book and read it. Presumably there's a point to this, I was planning to read some books anyway, but I assume there's more to it than just ticking the box to say, yup, I read a book. Suggestions welcome! If an eminent professor of Bible told you to read a book, what would you pick? I know the prof is an SF fan, she's trying to start a theological SF reading group.

Reading. I have... restarted... Polysecure (Jessica Fern), this time having set up some space in my notebook to Take Notes, because oof. I am still at Baby's First Introduction To Attachment Theory, and I am having Thoughts.

(I am Noticing that I procrastinated on actually picking it up until it was in the final days of the loan, with enough of a hold queue that if I don't finish it in the next 36 hours I will either be buying my own copy or sulking a bunch. This is definitely a reversion to employing Deadline Panic to get a thing done.)

Playing. Puzzle! We have COMPLETED the pond and the various rivers are beginning to coalesce. I am definitely having Thoughts about design, on which more soon/later maybe.

Cooking. We wound up with a paucity of broad beans and an excess of broccoli, so I dumped a bunch of broccol in the broad bean kuku and that worked pretty well.

I have managed to process Some of the redcurrants. There are So Many redcurrants. I really need to go and harvest more raspberries so I can make the jam, and am gently cursing myself for not having achieved this before the next round of heat wave arrived...

Eating. So many strawberries. Also we had an excellent date night dinner sat outside at Wagamama, where it turns out I do in fact really enjoy the gochujang tamarind corn ribs.

Making & mending. ALAS FOR US we have not Made The Window Covers, because our local B&Q had the appropriate plywood but a broken industrial saw for cutting it to size, and the next closest B&Q, which we called to confirm did have a working saw, despite its inventory claims did not have the appropriate plywood. Ergo this week we will be once again resorting to the space blankets.

Growing. I... repotted the pineapple thereby discovering that despite Remaining Alive it was NOT Happily Growing Roots in the medium it was in? So. We will see if it survives the relocation.

Observing. A Jersey Tiger!

Yesterday we wandered down via the bakery to the river (dropping off a bike with the local nice bikes autistic en route) and spent a while watching the various waterfowl: a gaggle of awkward teenage ducks; a separate gaggle of awkward teenage coots, still all trying to pile onto the one nest; a bundle of tiny flufflings all following mama duck, one of whom was consistently making a noise exactly like the PLIMK of a water drop in a space that amplifies the sound; and Six Quiet Orbs on the nest down the river, still with one (1) teenage coot tucked into the side of it. It was a very good walk for waterfowl.

Ny's Tumblr emerged from hibernation again and it's a very mixed set of feelings.

Last night my meds box mysteriously contained the 25mg tablet but not the 50mg. It's Just One Night, I think, always, when this happens (... about once a year, to be clear), I've Got So Much Better At The Whole Learning To Fall Asleep Thing, It'll Be Fine.

Spoilers: It Is Not Fine.

It remains genuinely magical to me that at 75mg of amitriptyline I can fall merrily asleep within 15 minutes of starting to try, and without it's... even with the breathing meditation and the working my way mentally through the Pilates sequence and the eventually giving up and playing sudoku at a hard enough level I get bored brute forcing it, it takes hours.

Thanks be for pharmacology, for ever and ever, good grief.

My attempts to recreate Dr Karg's Pumpkin Seeds Protein Thins for slightly less than £19.67 per kg continues. The latest iteration involved instant yeast that was sad and old and unopened, as opposed to sad and old and exposed to oxygen for mumble years, and goodness the texture's better. Still not drying out/crisping up enough in the middles, though, so I think the next batch gets a lower oven temperature and a longer bake time.

I am both shocked-Pikachu about and resigned to the fact that even though they are too soggy my body is going YES MORE OF THIS THESE YES YES about eating the things with cottage cheese (and also whole raw carrots). Because the recipe is not yet reliable I am doing a bad job of iterating when I finish consuming the previous batch; because they're £19.67/kg (or thereabouts) in the shop I am reluctant to spend more grocery money on them. And thus it is that I will go a week, or two, or three, with my primary protein-dense snack being The Yoghurt (~250g of skimmed milk powder to ~2.2l of milk seems to be working out fairly well at producing thick yoghurt I don't need to strain...), and then when I finally get around to tweaking the experimental recipe and trying again I Inhale The Things. Maybe the fresh(er) yeast and clear next steps will mean it won't take me as long next time? FINGERS CROSSED.

( 104. Common Goal - Rachel Reid ) Definitely a weaker one, but not terrible.

---

( 105. Useless Magic - Florence Welch ) It's clearly a bit of a vanity project aiming at the fans, but it could have been so much better if they'd just cut most of the song lyrics! If you are a fan, still worth picking up if you can find it cheap, but definitely not worth it unless you already have an interest in Florence Welch's... whole thing.

---

( 106. Emilie and the Hollow World and 109. Emilie and the Sky World - Martha Wells ) Very fun YA; I'm sorry there aren't more of these, because I would have enjoyed watching Emilie building expertise.

---

( 108. Role Model - Rachel Reid ) I do love a good reforming narrative.

---

( 110. A Lady of Quality - Frances Hodgson Burnett ) This is, honestly, in many ways quite bad... but still strangely compelling.

---

( 111. Flame and Shadow - Sara Teasdale ) May or may not try another, but I'm not sorry I read the good parts of this collection, at least.

---

( 112. Swiping Right - Sally Brooks ) Pretty enjoyable!

---

( 113. 10-lb Penalty - Dick Francis ) More political content (albeit carefully non-partisan) than I was expecting from Francis, but this was fun.

---

( 114. Hench - Natalie Zina Walschots ) I can see that this is a well-done piece of work, but I thought the argument it was making was really fallacious, and I couldn't get past that.

---

( 115. The Mousetrap - Agatha Christie ) I'm not sure why this play is the one that became the phenomenon, but it's a nice, solid bit of entertainment.

---

( 116. The Seven Brides-to-Be of Generalissimo Vlad - Victoria Goddard ) I feel like I ought to re-read this now I know where it's going, but it was really very adorable even the first time through.

---

( 117. The Language of the Night - Ursula Le Guin ) Essays, and often rather more curmudgeonly than I expect from Le Guin, but even so they're still well worth reading.

---

( 118. 52 Times Britain was a Bellend - James Felton ) Mildly amusing but could have been much better.

---

( 119. The Computer Connection - Alfred Bester ) I have no idea what Bester was thinking, but somehow he made even this mess weirdly engaging.

---

( 120. The Age of Reform - Sir Llewellyn Woodward ) Very inside politics, but still an interesting time to read about.

By which I mean they have been removed from their stalks and are ready to be turned into jam, but alas today was not a day when the body was willing to cooperate with... pretty much anything.

There are eight kilos to go!

Thus far I have found approximately (I lost count) five tiny snails, and relocated them to the hedge. Who Knows how many more Lurk...

Reading. Finished Your Inner Fish (Neil Shubin), which was apparently published in 2009 and is definitely showing its age (particularly in terms of talking about organisms being "more" or "less" evolved, but see also some previous grumbling). Nonetheless glad to have Consumèd.

Started Polysecure (Jessica Fern), on the qualified recommendation of my therapist. Currently having to dip in and out of Introduction To Attachment Theory, peeking through my fingers during the in, which is... more of a reaction to retreading this particular ground than I had quite anticipated.

Listening. More Hidden Almanac! Everyone is back from the visit to the traitors' graveyard! I... was semi awake during today's chunk, but only to the extent that I felt like I was following each individual sentence, not to the extent that I... actually have recall. Whoops.

Playing. We have STARTED our FINAL RIDICULOUS PUZZLE.

Eating. ALPINE STRAWBERRIES. RASPBERRIES FROM THE PLOT. So many redcurrants.

Making & mending. Put The Legs Back On The Coffee Table That Is Not A Weights Bench, thereby supplying the Surface for Puzzle. Pleased.

Growing. I have somehow come back from Cambs with nine kilos of redcurrants, which... I desperately need to process but which are currently in the fridge because actually I want to make redcurrant and raspberry jam and for that I need to go and harvest some damn raspberries. Tomorrow afternoon job, hopefully, now that the weather is being a little less ridiculous?

Otherwise: lemongrass Continues; small sad orchid is... maybe perking up a little; and SQUASH are doing THINGS.

Oh! And some PARSLEY has come up in the fig pot!!!

Observing. A couple of mystery birds in my mother's garden, which alas I did not get a good enough look at to ID.

I was listening to a David Attenborough audiobook and he said, as a shocking fact, that 34% of adult orangutan skeletons examined showed that the animal had broken at least one bone (as part of a discussion of the dangers of the tree-living life for larger animals), but actually I thought that seemed surprisingly low^* for a high-risk lifestyle.

I personally haven't broken any bones, although at one point they thought I'd broken a toe, or possibly even my foot; my sister broke her nose three times in six months, my brother broke his arm, I believe my mother broke her neck back in the day... I feel like a lot of people break things, but I thought I would survey you all to see whether my sense is correct.



^* although the sample may be biased towards animals that had survived the bone-break, which is obviously much harder for solitary animals in the wild...

On Very Hot Days, I have been enjoying adding a bit of rose syrup (and a lot of crushed ice) to my horrid protein slurry.

I knew I was doing this in a sort of falooda-influenced way! Today's realisation, though, is that I can prep the liquid portion in the protein shaker before I leave the house for the gym... with! the basil seeds! and then add the protein powder and crushed ice upon my return, immediately before mixing.

Alas I did not actually have this realisation until I was most of the way through inhaling today's protein shake, but I am definitely looking forward to Experimenting.

Heatwaves, ughhhh.

I've managed to keep my flat really relatively cool, blinds and curtains closed and windows shut during the day then open overnight to admit any potential coolness, but even so after three days of full heatwave it's 28.5C in here - and to add insult to injury, I'm also having to run the dehumidifier, which pumps out extra heat, because if I don't it's about 75% humidity.

However, the primary heatwave casualty to date is apparently my front door lock, which has abruptly decided not to work any more. I went to accept a delivery earlier and, nope. Ten minutes of effort with WD40 and all the spare sets of keys did finally manage to get the door open, but I was genuinely thinking I would have to call an emergency locksmith to get out of the building for a bit there! My father rang me (after I posted about it on the family chat) to warn me not to lock the door again (thanks dad would not have thought of that!!) but did then give me some good advice on how to remove it and where to look for replacements - he offered to do it himself, but he's going away again in a day or so, and when it's something I can tackle myself I'd mostly rather! He'll probably need to help me fit the new one, but I can definitely remove some screws and do the online research for replacements, etc.

Having said that, next week is four days of choir and the week after I'm on campus for graduations all week, so it may have to wait until my long-awaited annual leave the week after...

Anyway this evening Miss H and I are going to see Supergirl in what I devoutly hope will be an air-conditioned cinema, and I can't wait.

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.