chess | Reading

You know you had a bad day when the next day angelofthenorth brings you coffee as soon as she gets home, saying "well your blog post from yesterday made me think you'd need it!"

I actually had a much better day at work today: no meetings to speak of and I even started messing around with the slides for the presentation I have to give on Tuesday. Plus, Tuesday turns out to be the London staff's Christmas lunch and I can go to Wahaca (yes, that's how they spell it) with them, they're all excited about Taco Tuesday.

I was able to slip away from work early enough to walk Teddy before D and I went to see Pillion, which was well-acted and horny (even in the audio description!) and had some genuine funny moments but is a little too Fifty Shades of Gay in that its basic message that being a dom makes you a dickhead who is incapable of healthy relationships. But I had fun and I'm glad we had time for a pint in the twinkly outdoors before coming home to delicious homemade stew and dumplings.

And before I'd finished eating, angelofthenorth offered wanted cinnamon tea and when I made interested noises brought me some in the clear glass mug with the flower petals between its two walls which V bought in the Hebridean Tea Store, and then D asked if anyone wants a mince pie, so I had my first mince pie of the season with the perfect tea pairing for it.

Before bed I emptied the food waste bin, locked the doors, turned off the little plant lights, and changed my bedding. How nice to be in such a functional house, doing my little bit to reset, maintain, upkeep.

All this made me think of Kurt Vonnegut saying:

My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman taught me something very important.

He said that when things were really going well, we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.

Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: "If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is."

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is."

Posted by morbane

https://yuletide-admin.livejournal.com/299287.html

There's a new post up on the Yuletide Admin comm regarding Oncoming default deadline. Please note that there may have been a delay between that post and this crosspost.

You can go through to DW to check the details:

Dreamwidth Post

If you have follow-up questions, they can be asked in the DW comment section using a DW login, OpenID with another login, or a signed anonymous comment.

https://yuletide-admin.livejournal.com/299287.html

Default deadline

The deadline for a simple default on Yuletide is 9pm UTC on 10 December - just under one week from now. Please check the link - this isn't the same time of day as recent years.

The default deadline is the cut-off point for defaulting on your Yuletide assignment without a penalty. This applies if it's your first Yuletide, or if you posted successfully last time you signed up or took a pinch hit. Default before this time, and you're free to sign up again in future. If you're not sure whether the default deadline applies to you, please talk to mods (yuletideadmin@gmail.com).

Sample reasons to default:

You want to

You can't reconcile the canon, your writing strengths, and your recipient's DNWs

Life got in the way

A new installment of canon ruined your ideas

You use generative AI such as ChatGPT, and you just saw the rule that that's not allowed in this event

You can't see how to get the characters to do what you want them to do

You want to

People default every year for a variety of reasons. We don't need to know why, and we wish you well. When we open sign-ups, we recommend that you don't sign up unless you're confident you can write a story by the deadline. But after you've signed up, things may happen, and it's okay to withdraw, if that's what makes sense for you. See full information about defaulting at the FAQ.

To default, go to your assignment at the collection, and press the default button.

Assignment deadline

All original assignments, and all pinch hits sent out prior to the default deadline, are due at 9pm UTC 17 December (which is a DIFFERENT time of day to last year). Countdown

Pinch Hits

We have an outstanding pinch hit at

yuletide_pinch_hits. Please get in contact if you can help!!!

Betas & Beta Help Needed

We warmly welcome beta reader volunteers at the beta post and on Discord. See the FAQ for more information about finding betas if you need one!

Note: on the Yuletide Discord, requests for betas, or for brainstorming help that might give away what you're writing, are handled by DM-ing someone who currently holds a Hippo role. Please read the server FAQ before seeking a beta. Give your Hippo the relevant details and make sure you can receive messages back.

Treats and Posting

Click here for instructions on posting your assignment or treats. If you've finished your assignment and are considering treats, check out the app, and don't forget the promo post where people have advertised their canons. You may find something amazing there! Check out the prompts from pinch hitters too.

Keep Yuletide Madness in mind. The Madness collection is for stories under 1,000 words and stories which do not exactly fit the fandoms and characters requested. These works must still be gifts for other participants.

AFK post

We will also put up an Away from Keyboard post shortly on the

yuletide comm. The purpose of this post is that if people know they won't be able to respond to their gift until late in the anon period, or even until the new year, they can let their author know ahead of time. (Not being able to read and respond until several days after the collection opens is normal, though - many people will have family and other obligations!)

Happy December!

Thanks to BorrowMyDoggy, we've connected with a neighbor who lives ridiculously close, a retired couple who need help walking their 3-year-old labradoodle. Teddy was named by a tiny grandchild and it's the perfect name for him: he's got the softest curly fur and he loves everyone; when we went over to meet him he almost immediately snuggled into Vee and fell asleep pressed up next to them.

The two of us took Teddy for a small walk on Friday when I was done with work, just as it was getting dark, and Vee did a walk over the weekend while D and I were out and yesterday at the same after-work time but I wasn't able to join this time thanks to an overrunning meeting and counseling at 5:30.

I just got back from walking him now; we didn't go far but I left him sniff around for about 20 minutes. It was really lovely to be walking a dog again.

We met a couple of humans in the park who I didn't recognize and a dog that I did; they know Teddy well and gave him lots of pets, and they thought they recognized me -- "was it a jack russell you had?" Aww. I explained why a dog they knew was being walked by a human they didn't; Teddy's dad is going to have a knee replacement very soon. These two could tell that he's been having more trouble walking. It's lovely how the dog people notice and look out for each other.

I pay attention to this, my animal self has all sorts of smarts. Intuition? These things blend. The instinct, a feeling that something is... off? Wrong? Unshakeable. Had it for days. And yet everything else is marvellous right now, almost Spring-like for all the wuthering weather. It's just this strange undertow. Now I hear of a dear friend's difficulties and am concerned though relieved things turned out well. This morning, I found a bracelet sent to me by another dear friend when I first got my cancer diagnosis. I wore it every day then it disappeared for ages. Turns out it was in my bedside drawer all the time.

To anyone, including my valiant friend across the water.

Lebkuchen! Last year I discovered an excellent GF recipe for them and we have been eating them year-round, but they're still Christmassy to me :)

A dragon lying on top of lebkuchen

Right now the dead are busy in my dreams. Last few days it was Aunty, this time it's Dad. I can't help being superstitious about such dreams, they make me worry for Mum, but then that's what they are, anxiety wrapped up in fancy. I've spent the last two months worrying about her. Dad had done a lot of grocery shopping, bags of which were all over the floor waiting to be put away into cupboards etc. I was bewildered by all this activity, I don't remember my father ever shopping in his entire life. He gave me some teeny gold beads to eat, like breadcrumbs rolled in gold. I tried them and they were sweet, but nothing special. There was some black and white footage of me but much prettier and young, it was very 1940s/50s. When I turned my back, you could see something like a big mole/scab/wound to the left on my lower back. It was the kind of distracting thing one would edit out of a photo today.

Meanwhile, the tree is nearly finished. One of the old masks needs fixing but some are in place. R loves them and they'll entertain our guests. I like them too, even though the Prince at the top makes the whole thing look somewhat sinister. Mum thinks we should bung a star there, and she has a point. He does have this habit of significant looming.

Have to get this one in early since we're nearly past the piles-of-leaves time :)

A dragon lying half-hidden under a pile of leaves

A podcast I like just did a Patreon bonus episode about Christmas songs, and listening to it today was a fun way to get into the spirit, now we've gotten past thanksgiving and into December.

They invited us to tell them about other songs than the ones they mentioned at the end, and I compiled such a mental list that I made it into a physical list. Especially because they suggested at the end to let them know about any Christmas songs they might not know, and since it's a baseball podcast and they're from the U.S., and I didn't know about Slade and Wizzard until I left the U.S., I figured they were worth a mention (I do like both songs as well and think even if I ever get back to Minnesota for Christmas, Noddy Holder yelling "It's Christmas!" will have to be part of it.)

Here's my list, in no particular order:

Last Christmas
Obviously.
Coventry Carol
This is in the medieval/haunting/melancholy vibes category; I've loved it since it was on some Christmas album I had as a little kid
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
I just love this, contrived as it is. It's like the baton is being handed over from Mr. Traditional Christmas to a new generation. It never fails to give me goosebumps to hear their individual melodies come together at the end.
Sleigh Ride
I slightly prefer the original/instrumental, but the Ronettes version on the Phil Specter album is so iconic it's practically its own entry.
Do You Hear What I Hear
Another favorite of mine as a kid; my mom is a soprano and would sing along to this which I really loved. I thought this was another centuries-old one, but looking it up to link here I learned it was written in 1962, by a married couple who "wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis."
Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Overture
I love the music from the Nutcracker anyway but I love it this way the best.
Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody and Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1888828.html

Hey, Americans and people living in the US going through open enrollment on the state ACA marketplaces who haven't yet enrolled in a plan for 2026!

Just about every state in the union and DC (but not Idaho) proudly touts an end date to open enrollment sometime in January. This year for most states it ends January 15th, but in CA, NJ, NY, RI, and DC, it's January 31st, and here in Massachusetts, it's January 23rd. (Idaho's is December 15th.) [Source]

That sure sounds like the deadline is sometime in January.

No, it kinda isn't.

( tl;dr: Just assume if you want insurance to start Jan 1, the deadlines are to enroll by Dec 8 and to pay for the first month by Dec 15. Important deets within. [950 words] )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Advent calenders! I will dig out Nakatomi Plaza again, but as an extra, got R a coffee testing calender. Today he starts with a silky Colombian. See, see how I resist the jokes! He got me a perfume sample calendar too, so my reviews will start early.

December has started off by giving me the gift of a peculiar dream.

I was with someone unknown/vaguely familiar in real life, part of a group who had hired a house. My companion was flapping wildly because a key had been lost, not to the whole house, but to part of it. Either the key or the room it opened was labelled '2'.

I couldn't see what the problem was; all they had to do was ask the landlord for a replacement key. The person gave me instructions indicating that I should take the basin out of the sink and pee in it. It was full of crockery. I did what they asked but looking at the urine sloshing around the plates, decided this had to be wrong and drained away the pee. Did I then clean the plates? I don't think so. I had it in mind to just throw it all away and let no-one know how totally I misunderstood instructions/ followed them even though they were clearly stupid. Then I was with the panicking person again, and we were walking uphill through a street. An uphill motif has been very clear these past few dreams. The person was going back to the house lacking the key, and talked about how the group as a whole was unhelpful, hadn't followed house rules, couldn't tidy, lost things. My own house was back down the hill, the person's furore was not my problem, though I felt sympathetic because they were extremely agitated. I was on the pavement to the left of this person, and knew we would reach the top of the hill, then they would have to turn right towards another road when we got there.

Bizarre.

But hello December! I promise not to pee on any plates!

Continuing from the earlier experiment, emotional support weaving with handspun weft:

weaving WIP

Tension management is a mess with this (experimental, non-destructive) setup but I figured I'd at least weave this warp, write this off as a learning experience (I did learn a lot) + disaster-mode "weaving" art therapy, and move on. :)

I also learned that I strongly dislike making very "loose," airy weaves structurally, so that's good to know about myself. I sometimes like them in fabrics made by machines/other people but I don't enjoy weaving them, so I'll avoid in the future!

It's December, so it's time for Advent Calendars again, and I thought why not put it here as well as all the other places I upload stuff to :) I thought I'd try something a bit different this year, namely dragons, so here is a goofy dragon emerging from a cracker. And since it is traditional to have Megaera and her phoenix on the image for December 1st, I put them on the cracker :)

A grinning dragon emerging from a cracker

A grinning dragon emerging from a cracker

Today my online pal Ri, in the Netherlands, said

My sister is going to the MECFS protest in Den Haag today, on my behalf. She has a piece of cartbord and is asking me what to write on it.
Any ideas?

I suggested "Don't forget the people you don't see."

(I think about this a lot, at every protest I'm at.)

Their sister chose this from the suggestions Ri made. They shared a photo their sister took. Written on the cardboard is:

Vergeet de mensen die je niet ziet niet.
- Ri, ME sinds 2012, bedbound sinds 2021

Ri also gave the English translation:

Don't forget the people you don't see.
- Ri, ME since 2012, bedbound since 2021.

Vergeet and Niet (forgot and not) are bolder and bigger than the other words.

Great until the last ten minutes. Here's how it should have ended:
( Hidden for spoilers )

We enjoyed this film, even R who is not a fan of horror, but agreed that the ending was unsatisfactory. Then for true horror, we turned to the Wales/South African Rugby match.

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

Saori WX60 + Clover Sakiori 60cm "feather" (reed/heddle thingy???) Frankenloom warping. This does work. It doesn't work all that well, but it works. Fortunately, the weaving is the fast part and this is a shorter warp, so I'll just finish this for exploration's sake and then return to "normal" warping. :)