The child, barely old enough to talk, was one of 25 immigrant children forced to fight removal efforts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at the Pima County immigration courthouse in Tucson on Nov. 24.
This article highlights numerous abuses and other problems.
Today is mostly sunny and quite frigid. It snowed copiously yesterday, wiping out our plans to visit a holiday market. :(
I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus at least one mourning dove. The windows are frosted so much that it's hard to identify them.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/14/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/14/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/14/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
I've seen two male and one female cardinal. At one point, the sparrows were trying to fit 7-8 birds on an edge of the hopper feeder with room for maybe 4-5 if they weren't fighting. So it's actually beyond four-bird-cold today!
"He took the Walkman out of his pocket and flipped through the songs in the cassette."
Oh, sweetie. That's... that's just not how cassette tapes work. Not even overseas. You fast forward or rewind - literally winding the tape again - and hope that your timing is amazing. I mean, with practice I guess you can get pretty good, but still.
My brother passed away late last night. He had congestive heart failure, pneumonia, and a septic infection. It caused massive stress to his heart which simultaneously cratered his BP and spiked his pulse and did major damage to his liver and kidneys. His body didn't want to breathe for him anymore.
Now begins the fun of wrapping up his affairs, most of which I won't be able to do until I get death certificates in a couple of weeks. At least I got his truck and trailer safely secured. I got his phone powered up, but it's locked: I was hoping it might be the code that I expected, so maybe I can get ahold of a data recovery company to crack it so I can see if there's anyone whom I should get ahold of for the grave-side service that I'm hoping that I can arrange for the end of the week.
I bought something for my second bike trailer build on Saturday.
The trailer’s basically been done for weeks already. I’m adding details and accessories now, like, I want to sew a cover, and I want to add reflectors. So I took it for another little shakedown ride, this time to a hardware store I found out had DOT-grade adhesive reflectors in stock for… more money than I’d like, but not unreasonable money.
Here’s what I’ve done with those stickers so far. I think it’s pretty good. The rear view is my biggest concern, given that my bike is well-lit, and this… frankly ugly flash photo… makes the reflectors pop well, showing how they’d reflect headlights. It’ll help:
But it occurred to me as I was doing all this that…
This is the first time I’ve bought something for this project.
The trailer frame was salvaged from a semi-wrecked kiddo hauler abandoned outdoors for over a year. The platform is made from a cargo pallet someone illegally dumped and I salvaged; the metal clamps holding it in place I shaped out of old building strapping. I literally found the warning flag pole on the street, and it inserts into a metal tube salvaged from a housemate’s broken laundry rack. I made a flag for it from scrap fabric. The cage is made from Buy Nothing-listed DIY cube shelving, the kind that never really works right, but there’s nothing wrong with the wire squares that a whole bunch of zip ties can’t fix. Other parts are 3D-printed, designed by me, printed by me, at home.
Everything else was just ordinary supplies I already had.
But when it came to the reflectors… I looked around a little, but then… I just went and bought something. And I have kind of mixed feelings about that!
I mean, it’s fine. Really. At some point, I’m going to want to replace these tyres, too, and that’s a purchase – they were also in the outdoors for at least a year and as a result are semi-rotted. They’re only still usable because I used a lot of silicone glue to make a reinforcement coat on the walls. (Hey, it’s not stupid if it works, and it works.) So sooner or later, money was going to be spent.
But even so, just buying something – even if it’s something you legitimately can’t make at home, like DOT-spec reflective material – feels like cheating. I kinda don’t like it.
Part of it is that I started making these cargo carriers around the time Anna got laid off, and even after she finally got a new job earlier this year, I kept the same approach. Sure, it helped that I already had basically everything I needed by that time, but also, we’re trying to make up for a lot of lost money and time, so I kept doing things the same way.
Until today, when I didn’t. I did it the normal way instead. It’s a very normal thing. You need an item, a part, whatever – you can just buy it.
And… maybe… maybe it’s just how extremely abnormal everything else is right now, in this endless emergency… but…
Ugh. Multiple appointments this week, all of which got rescheduled, sometimes more than once. My dental cleaning revealed a cavity, so I had to go back to get that dealt with. My regular follow-up for my HRT was a bit of a fiasco. They were obviously too busy and didn’t actually have time to provide me with competent care. Normally, I don’t need anything in particular; I’m just showing up so they can renew my prescriptions. But I had actual questions this time. No one was really listening to me, as they kept misunderstanding what I was talking about, and they didn’t have time to do anything for me anyway.
So I have another appointment, which I needed anyway to get the last round of HPV vax. Maybe that will go better… Perhaps they will also have the injection supply kits I use (since my pharmacy can’t manage to fill them in a timely or accurate manner), which they were out of. And apparently now I have to have at least a telehealth appointment to get the results of my blood test for my T levels, which is a new policy. Considering it takes me over an hour to get to them, I wish they would be a bit less cavalier about making me come back multiple times.
No one’s head is really in the game at work right now, least of all mine. There are various holiday activities happening, and I think we’re all just skating from one to the next until we get to our days off. Which doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy, because nonsense is constantly afoot. I’m just not sure I’m especially competent right now. ≧ ﹏ ≦
Lewisia: 3 new pieces written
Day job: 42.5 hours, not counting the 1.5hr of consultation via text
Crafting: converted 1 more sticker into a magnet, repaired more socks
Gardening: harvested pumpkins, garden club post
Reading: The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell (a sort of fairy tale [pun intended] of the ebb and flow of the fortunes of the collective queer community, interesting reading in these strange times), The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (I only saw the movie for the first time as an adult and it did not have the magic it might have if I saw it at a younger age, but the book was perfectly lovely, he does truly gorgeous things with language)
Watching: Jurassic World: Rebirth (huh...well, it was a better movie than the last one [low bar] but it still feels like they’ve lost the thread--I like the series because dinosaurs, which seem to take a backseat to other concerns in the modern movies)
Listening: Napichideh by B-Band (“Kavire Del” was one of the all-time best finds from KEXP for me years ago, and I finally managed to obtain the full album)
Aftermarket Parts: six month follow-up
Clock Mouse: 1208 words
Other: dentist...twice...
mellowtigger (mellowtigger) wrote2025-12-1410:53 am
Winter solstice is just a few days away, so I thought it would be a good week to share some of the fascinating recent news from astronomy.
A study was published in Science, summarized in a few news sites. Here is the least advertising-heavy version that I could find. It talks about how diverse life on a planet may be slow or unlikely to form, unless rich hydrocarbons are delivered to it from the outer edges of a solar system. Near the forming star, for example, the temperature is too hot for these gases to condense along with the planet, so they get blown by the solar wind and condense farther out. The hypothesized body Theia is what crashed into Earth (forming our moon afterward) and also delivered hydrocarbons and water. It's an interesting idea, and it makes Earth a little more special in the galaxy. That also makes it a factor in the Drake equation about the chances of finding intelligent life. I'm not sure how this theory squares with Venus, which is theorized to originally have had lots of water on it too.
Voyager 1 is almost 1 light-day away from Earth. This very anthropocentric "turning of the odometer" milestone will occur next year in November 2026. This article in Popular Science talks about it. I follow Voyager 2 on Mastodon, where there are automated reminders about the distance of both probes.
I don't know if Logan (aka loganbeary aka Dodecadude) is still alive. He left both Dreamwidth and Livejournal around the same time, but I thought his cancer treatment was going okay. He might appreciate this story in Scientific American about the magnetic sun. Scientists have a theory for predicting the solar cycle that is so effective that they're now forming a company to sell predictions based on the model. They don't know yet why the theory works, just that it's an effective model.
According to McIntosh, the Hale cycle and the sunspot cycle are both ruled by magnetic bands that wrap around the sun like rings. Near the maximum of the traditional solar cycle, two new bands appear at high latitudes in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres; they have opposite polarities. As the cycle continues, they gradually migrate toward the equator, and new bands again appear at high latitudes—picture the arrangement as kind of like a conveyor belt. A terminator happens when the older magnetic bands finally collide at the equator. That meet-cute isn’t actually cute: it annihilates both old bands because their opposition zeroes them out. McIntosh’s model suggests the annihilation is the definitive end of a solar cycle.
There's plenty more astronomy news. It's an exciting time to be alive! Someday, I might even go study this stuff formally. I hear the Powerball lottery jackpot is up to 1 billion dollars. That's nothing to sniff at.
When you have health insurance, you have a contract (health plan) with the insurance company that says that for the duration (the plan year) of the contract, you will pay them the agreed upon monthly fee every month (the premium), in exchange for them paying for your health care... some.
How much is "some"? Well, that depends.
To understand what it depends on, you have to understand the three-stage model that health plans are organized around.
This three-stage model is never described as such. It is implicit in the standard terms (jargon) of the health insurance industry, and it is never made explicit. There is no industry term (jargon) for the model itself. There are no terms (jargon) for the three stages. But health insurance becomes vastly easier to understand if you think about it in terms of the three-stage model that is hiding in just about every health plan's terms (agreements).
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Not a great week. Started out well, with cat cuddles and walks Sunday and
Monday mornings. Then came my GP appointment.
CW: medical, whingeing.
Since April or therabouts,
my "GP" is a clinic with a handful of doctors and a bunch of assistants.
It took me a while (months) to finally figure this out. Anyway, Carmen --
the assistant I saw on Monday -- couldn't find my lab results from 20
November. Fortunately I'd asked for a printout at my previous
appointment, so I scanned that and sent it by email. I got my BP meds
changed somewhat. Then labs on Wednesday.
Of course, I was supposed to be fasting, so that was a bust. And I picked
up my re-filled prescriptions (the pharmacy is across the street), but
there was one missing. So I went in again for labs on Thursday, and they
couldn't find a vein. WTF? They advised me to try at the hospital. Labs
at HagaZiekenhuis require an appointment, but fortunately I already
had an appointment, following up on my anemia. So that was
Friday. Skipped breakfast, went in, handed them both lab forms,
one stick and done. And their website works, so I got to see the
results ahead of the appointment next week.
Oh yeah, I also had a psych appointment Thursday afternoon, to discuss
antidepressants, which actually went well. I really don't have any idea
how to make use of therapy, but I like talking about myself, my problems,
and my family. Follow-up in two weeks.
Then yesterday I tried attending Festival of the Living Rooms, the
quarterly online filk con that started almost by accident during Covid.
But instead of using the Zoom app, which just works, they
insisted on going through the web app embedded on their shiny new website.
Calling it beta quality is being generous. FotLR may have jumped the
shark this time.
Naturally I didn't get much done otherwise, although I did go
back and look at the scratch tracks I'd recorded for my next album,
Amethyst Rose. Um... They were recorded between 2004 and 2010! WTF?
I'll have to see whether anything can be rescued from that debacle.
They then factored in other variables that can affect life expectancy, including physical inactivity, employment status, and educational level. The association between insufficient sleep and lower life expectancy still held. Only smoking had a stronger link.
Good, adequate sleep is a survival need. Modern society often sabotages it.
However, this study suggests that banking sleep on weekends can mitigate the effects of lost sleep during the week. I used to do that in school, and people said it didn't work, but it certainly helped my energy level. It may be a trick that some but not all bodies can do.
Skiing Lesson By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams Part 1 of 1, complete Word count (story only): 1375
:: Farrah is visiting friends in Colorado when they interrupt their original plans to give her a birthday surprise. General fiction, written for the December of 2025 prompt call, from a suggestion made by callibr8. My deepest thanks to her! ::
Farrah walked as quickly as her snow pants allowed, and reached the front desk at the hotel before the clerk could page her a third time. “Call for Miss Anders? I’m here,” Farrah declared, crossing her arms. “You do realize that it’s before eight in the morning?”
“Yes, Miss Anders.” The clerk shrugged almost imperceptibly. “We tried calling your room, and when there was no answer, switched to making a general announcement. You had a call, but they asked that you be told to be ready to depart at a quarter of nine. I’m doing my best to make sure that you’re ready.” ( Read more... )
The goal is to herd all the "What do you call this?" posts into the comments there. It never ever works. However, they do occasionally get comments like "Here are the answers to the questions you asked rhetorically as an example" and "Why do you keep posting this and asking the same questions" and "There is no such thing as a pork burger".
Yes, Virginia, there is a pork burger. This is why I have a picture of pork burger patties on my phone, so I can post it every time somebody says that those don't exist, or that they "really" mean a breakfast sandwich or a pulled pork sandwich or a ham sandwich or a BLT.
I always want to ask these people who, I guess, don't get out much why they're so sure that anything they haven't personally heard of before must not exist. It's a big old world, but apparently, not so much for them.
(I suppose I can be forgiven for being a bit snippy this time around, I mean, given everything.)
Humans may carry ancient neural traces that let us recognize the voices of our primate cousins.
Humans don’t just recognize each other’s voices—our brains also light up for the calls of chimpanzees, hinting at ancient communication roots shared with our closest primate relatives. Researchers found a specialized region in the auditory cortex that reacts distinctly to chimp vocalizations, but not to those of bonobos or macaques, revealing an unexpected mix of evolutionary and acoustic influences.
Today is cloudy and cold with copious snow. This has wiped out our plans to visit a holiday market. :(
I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, at least one female and four male cardinals, a mourning dove, and a tiny wren clinging to the bathroom window as it probed the edges for hibernating insects.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/13/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/13/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/13/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
Welcome to the December edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!
Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.
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ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-14 02:17 pm
