stonepicnicking_okapi: ChopSuey (chopsuey)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
1. To recap, Monday night the horrible leak which had been growing and growing in the boys' bedroom ceiling became more horrible and after a really scary night of buckets and pails and bins and drip-drip-drip which drove me partially insane, and a morning which including sleeping on in the car, the roof caved in.

So I fled to an extended stay hotel. I thought the boys would come with me, but they didn't want to. They stayed with their father.

So contractors came and did an estimate, and then they came and fixed the enormous hole in the ceiling and the nasty wall of mold which was in the boys' closet. So they've had 2 nights of no leaks, so I've come back home.

I felt like I was Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy or a fugitive or something. In a liminal state of neither here nor there. The closest eating place was Chick-fil-a but I drove to get a tuna sub. It's PRIDE month, goddammit, no homophobic waffle fries (or peach milkshake, which sounds even better) for you! I didn't turn on the TV either the whole time. I think some people live there because the school bus came. And I heard kids and saw a cat in a window. Today is the last full day of school for the boys. They have three half days next week.

2. Today is FESTA day which is the 12th anniversary of the debut of BTS and last night in Seoul, jhope had a concert and all seven were in attendance, including SUGA!!! So it is a very good day.
stonepicnicking_okapi: journal (journal)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I did this one before the chaos with the ceiling. I like the three jars on the other page of the planner so I included them in the scan. Still going with the peach theme for June.

I is for [Requiescat] In Pace

Jun. 12th, 2025 07:38 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: holmes in silohuette (holmessilouhette)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Title: I is for [Requiescat] In Pace
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Notes: Angst, part 5 of Time Loop: Reichenbach, set during "The Final Problem, this is a linked series of ficlets in which Watson relives Reichenbach based on theories collated in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes about what happened on that day.
Length: 500
Characters: Holmes & Watson
Prompt: acidic
Warning: Major Character Death
Summary: Watson wakes up on 4 May 1891 in Switzerland with Holmes (for the fifth times) and elects not to accompany Holmes to the Falls.

Read more... )

My ficlet: I is for Indurate

Jun. 12th, 2025 07:01 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: holmes in silohuette (holmessilouhette)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Title: I is for Indurate
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Notes: Angst, part 4 of Time Loop: Reichenbach, set during "The Final Problem, this is a linked series of ficlets in which Watson relives Reichenbach based on theories collated in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes about what happened on that day.
Length: 500
Characters: Holmes & Watson & Moriarty
Prompt: selcouth
Summary: Watson wakes up on 4 May 1891 in Switzerland with Holmes and discovers Holmes has set a trap for Moriarty.

Read more... )

My ficlet: I is for Incarnate

Jun. 12th, 2025 06:15 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: holmes in silohuette (holmessilouhette)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Title: I is for Incarnate
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Notes: Angst, part 3 of Time Loop: Reichenbach, set during "The Final Problem, this is a linked series of ficlets in which Watson relives Reichenbach based on theories collated in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes about what happened on that day.
Length: 500
Characters: Holmes & Watson & Moriarty & Moran
Prompt: timid
Warning: Major Character Death, elements of the supernatural
Summary: Watson wakes up on 4 May 1891 in Switzerland with Holmes and discovers Moriarty more than what he seems.

Read more... )
stonepicnicking_okapi: otherwords (otherwords)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Anne Hathaway by Carol Ann Duffy

Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…
(from Shakespeare’s will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love –
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

My poem & Rilke

Jun. 12th, 2025 03:17 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: butterflycard (butterflycard)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
So I am a week behind on my 52 poem challenge. Last week the prompt was to write a poem about a famous person (who is dead) and the focus is on a small incident in their lives. So I chose Rilke and found an anecdote about how he had received a business letter and was composing a response, pacing near the castle where he was staying, and the first line of the first of the Duino Elegies came to him. So that's what I wrote about.


Dear Sir: Regarding a matter which requires your urgent attention... by okapi

The letter arrived in the morning post.
The envelope was dull, the lettering
was careful and upright. The poet sighed.
He slit the shroud, unfolded the dead words,
and read and sighed again. It must be deal with.
Sums would be required. On paper too fine
for the purpose, he began then stopped, stood,
and left, marching from castle to bastions
overlooking the sea, he paced the length,
back and forth, as the strong bora wind blew,
his mind was full of numbers and figures,
back and forth, he paced, back and forth until—
he heard it
on the roar—
“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’
hierarchies
?”
by nightfall, there would be a birth, a verse
long-awaited as well as a piece
of correspondence, dull, careful, upright
left unanswered on the edge of a desk.


---

And here is the first stanza of the first elegy of the Duino Elegies

from The First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke [trans. Stephen Mitchell}

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in our interpreted world.
Perhaps there remains for us some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take into our vision;
there remains for us yesterday's street and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease
when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces.
Whom would it not remain for--that longed-after, mildly disillusioning presence,
which the solitary heart so painfully meets.
Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet?
Fling the emptiness out of your arms into the spaces we breathe;
perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

Word: Skookum

Jun. 11th, 2025 05:03 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: letters (letters)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
This Wednesday's word is brought to you via new DW friend [personal profile] daryl_wor:

skookum

A lot of different definitions:

adjective

1. marked by strength or power
2. marked by excellent quality, first-rate
3. reliable or hard-working.

noun

1. an evil spirit or a woodland monster

origins

Chinook Jargon. Chinook Jargon developed as a language among Indigenous peoples and European traders in the Pacific Northwest (of the US), particularly around the Columbia River. It emerged in the late 18th century, primarily as a means of communication in trade, and incorporated elements from various languages, including Chinook, French, and English.
stonepicnicking_okapi: cleaning (cleaning)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
1. Last night there was a massive leak in the boys' bedroom and I had every bucket, trash bin, baking sheet, and towel out. We called the emergency maintenance twice and got an AI voice telling us that it sounded like something that could be dealt with during business hour. Fuck you, you miserable pieces of shit.

So the drip-drip-drip all night drove me insane.

We even banged on the door upstairs but she wouldn't open the door!

I put the boys in my bed and I slept on the floor for about 2 hours. Then around 430, I got up, meditated, made the boys' lunches and packed a bag and went to the car. And slept for about an hour.

The ceiling crashed in about 7 am as the boys were getting ready for school. It's a mess. It's a complete and utter shite fest.

Then I fled and let the boys' father handle the maintenance and building management.

tw: cutting )

We had put in maintenance requests about the leak but of course they ignored them.

I am getting sleepy so I may go back to the car and take a nap. I suppose I could take a nap in the library but...I feel like getting in the car and going to a hotel and starting fresh with a new name and a new identity.

2. The job hasn't called me back, but I think I submitted all the paperwork.

This is my new favorite YT Garron Noone, the Irishman.

My ficlet: I is for Innocent

Jun. 9th, 2025 05:53 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: holmes in silohuette (holmessilouhette)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Title: I is for Innocent
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Warning: Major Character Death
Notes: Angst, part 2 of Time Loop: Reichenbach, set during "The Final Problem, this is a linked series of ficlets in which Watson relives Reichenbach based on theories collated in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes about what happened on that day.
Warnings: Drug use, needles, Murder, Suicide, please don't read if the idea of Holmes killing an innocent person and himself during a cocaine binge will upset you.
Length: 500
Characters: Holmes & Watson
Prompt:
Summary: Watson wakes up (again) on 4 May 1891 in Switzerland with Holmes and discovers Holmes' mind is fatally addled by cocaine.

Read more... )

My ficlet: I is for Imaginary

Jun. 9th, 2025 05:05 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: holmes in silohuette (holmessilouhette)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Title: I is for Imaginary
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Notes: Angst, part 1 of Time Loop: Reichenbach, set during "The Final Problem, this is a linked series of ficlets in which Watson relives Reichenbach based on theories collated in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes about what happened on that day.
Length: 500
Characters: Holmes & Watson
Prompt:
Summary: Watson wakes up on 4 May 1891 in Switzerland with Holmes and discovers Moriarty is his own invention.

Read more... )

Music Monday: medieval ambient

Jun. 9th, 2025 11:29 am
stonepicnicking_okapi: record player (recordplayer)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I can't listen to any music with lyrics when I am writing so I search out these kinds of channels on YT.

Sherlock Sunday: The Field Bazaar

Jun. 8th, 2025 02:26 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: holmes in silohuette (holmessilouhette)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
The great thing about being a fan is unearthing canon you've never heard of. I never expected such a thing with the Sherlock Holmes fandom but here we are.

This is the full text of is a very short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Bazaar number of the Student on 20 November 1896. The Bazaar was held to raise money required to erect a pavilion and complete the equipment of a 13-acre field that had been recently purchased for the University of Edinburgh.

Full text of The Field Bazaar )

(no subject)

Jun. 6th, 2025 01:03 pm
22degreehalo: Sailor Moon holding onto Fiore's arms, even as her transformation jewel is being ripped from her. (anime2)
[personal profile] 22degreehalo
Fandom events in 2025 be like:

>'Can I-?' Just have fun!! :) We're here to create! To enjoy ourselves! Or don't. I can't tell you what to do! :P As long as you make something vaguely completion-shaped, we'd love to see it! <3

>Use of AI, in any way, shape, or form, is strictly prohibited. If you are caught using AI on your works, you will be banned from this and any/all of our future events. This includes using AI to rephrase sentences.
RNG is perfectly fine, but AI is not allowed.
stonepicnicking_okapi: otherwords (otherwords)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
from Leaves of Grass

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

GREAT NEWS

Jun. 5th, 2025 10:21 am
stonepicnicking_okapi: pinkfireworks (pinkfirewoks)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Thank you for the outstanding impression you made during your interview. We are so glad to have a great new team member.

I have to fill out a lot of paperwork and go through orientation but I (most likely) have a job!!!


OMG!

Word: Banjax

Jun. 4th, 2025 03:55 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: letters (letters)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I haven't don't one of these since April, but I've come across some new-to-me words.

Wednesday's word is...

...banjax.


1. ruin, incapacitate, or break.


I found this new-to-me word in the Inspector Rebus I just finished (Saints of the Shadow Bible).

"...Reckons we banjaxed the Saunders case to keep a good snitch on the street."

I would also like to add this saying (also new-to-me) from the same which is very Rebus.

Fair exchange is no robbery

That is definitely going to be the title of my next hard-boiled detective fic. It's great.

Book Bingo: June 2025

Jun. 4th, 2025 02:59 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: books (books)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
This bingo card was created by [personal profile] kingstoken. More about the challenge here: https://kingstoken.dreamwidth.org/109837.html



LBGTQ+: Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Derby. An interesting life. This is a long work, however, and at times was a slog just because of the length. 500+ pages.

Multiple POV: The Guest List by Lucy Foley. Of course, you can't think of a Multiple POV book when you want to, so I googled it and got this, and my library had it on audiobook. It's a modern And then there were none with everyone coming to a wedding on an island. No one is likeable. Really, they're all sort of awful. And it wasn't clever. And public school boys bullying someone to death is too cliche for me. But it held my attention enough to finish it. 10+hours. Ensemble narrator cast.

Anthology/Collection: The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón. An excellent collection of poetry by the US Poet Laureate. I listened to audio verison in her own voice, which I recommend. I included some of my favorites in an April post: https://stonepicnicking-okapi.dreamwidth.org/598098.html

Friendship: Seafire by Natalie C. Parker. This was my 'blind date' book I got at the library in February. It was a YA fantasy book of a kind of Mad Max world on the water. The main characters are young women who are captain and crew of a ship which is renegade/rogue, fighting against the warlord who controls the area. It was good. The world building was interesting. I'm not going to read the next in the series but I enjoyed it. Friendship is definitely a main theme. [I am also trying to do as many squares as I can of [personal profile] garonne's 2025 Book Bingo here: https://garonne.dreamwidth.org/58219.html so I think this qualifies as G-B-3: Set at sea.]

Movie/TV-tie in: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. This was the first book on the 'Reading List for 4th graders' sent Minisculus' teacher, and I decided to make a Mother-Son book club. It's a sweet little book about a girl in Florida. They made a movie out of it. Winn-Dixie for unfamiliar is a grocery store chain and the girl names the stray dog (like Annie and Sandy) after the grocery store she finds it in. Minisculus, of course, reads manga and Percy Jackson. But he needs more torture in his life :) [also for G-I-1: children's book]

News & Views

Jun. 3rd, 2025 05:17 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: ChopSuey (chopsuey)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
1. The interview on Thursday is the big thing.

2. I have finally started actually writing my casefic for the exchange.

3. School is winding down for the boys. Their last day is 18 June.

4. I realized that the book that Minisculus and I are reading was made into a film (Because of Winn-Dixie) so I have my movie-tie in for the book bingo.

5. 13 June is FESTA day, which is the day BTS debuted (so BTS birthday). All but SUGA will be out by then.

I wish I could make this look this easy.

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