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Not much exciting the last couple of weeks. RWBY has well and truly caught my interest, and then the studio had to make the new season much harder to watch just at the same time @space_parasite's computer broke. So we won't get to start it till this week. I would like there to be good fanfiction about Qrow, but I don't have any ideas to write it myself - the eternal frustration point!

Fluffy brown cat has finally decided he likes at least one of the new foods we've been trying on him, so I really hope he will regain vim and vigor soon. It's sad to see him huddled silently on the couch most of the time instead of being up, down, into things and meowing at 3am. (Never thought I'd miss that last one.) He does greatly enjoy the birdfeeder videos now.

Gravity Falls is silly but mostly in smart ways. We're almost through the first season; it reminds both of us of Invader Zim, but this has more coherent plot.

Niece gaming: The party has made it through the maze of traps, proving their worth to the small prairie dog creatures. Now they just have to convince the centaurs to negotiate. Alas, the matriarch just stumbled up above on the surface and put her relatively giant-sized hoof down through the ceiling of the meeting chamber. Niece fulfilled a long-cherished dream by saving the others with her very last spell and fainting dramatically from the effort.

@space_parasite has signed us up for a weekly box of fresh vegetables! That is....a LOT of vegetables. An overwhelming amount this past week. I tried cramming multiple vegetables into everything and the results were not always successful, though @space_parasite valiantly consumed them anyway. It's going to be a challenge to compromise between the savory-meat-with-dairy dishes I tend to prefer with all the veggies we ought to be eating.

BBQ sauce/honey baked chicken sauteed with onions: win
Beets and other veggies stirfried with garlic and balsamic vinegar: So-so, mostly because I'm not a beet fan.
Salmon with creamy lemon-caper sauce, over orzo with peas: WIN
Balsamic tomato chicken with onions: win
Baby bok choy sauteed with ginger and garlic: YUM. It's a new vegetable I actually like!
Mahi mahi with lemon basil butter sauce : Decent. Uses up an awful lot of butter if want enough sauce to be satisfying.
Roasted spaghetti sqash with parmesan and rosemary: Not quite as good as the first time I made it, but still tasty
Lasagna: OK, but then we had a mountain of leftover lasagna that defeated me after two days. Next time, smaller pan. Also the no-boil noodles aren't as good, negating their convenience.
Sundried tomato chicken: a reliable win
Roasted asparagus: Simple and tasty as long as I don't leave it in too long
Parmesan herb baked mahi mahi: Tasty! Requires Greek yogurt.
Cinnamon roasted butternut squash: Also very tasty.
Potato-chard frittata: Meh. So many vegetables they overwhelmed the egg. @space_parasite said it was better as leftovers, but if I make it again it will be with moderation.
Lemon garlic bokchoy: FAIL. I tried to use all of the last lemon, and it came out too citroid to be edible.

Current Music: The Raven King, Stiefvater

I successfully pulled off another secret agent mission game for niece! She found the first part in a letter outside her door this morning asking for help with a stolen painting. The thief (Carmen Sandiego, naturally) was so skilled that authorities weren't even sure which painting was missing.

Her first task was a written test of Harry Potter trivia questions, followed by a simple cryptogram that when solved told her that the first letter of each trivia answer would spell out the picture's name (The Swan Princess). Finally, a riddle directed her to enter the smallest room in the house, turn around and face the door. She found the picture duct-taped to the upper inside of the hall closet door. It's a print I've had for many years of a woman with a swan reflection (alas, I can't remember the artist's name and there's no hope of finding it with an image search). She's going to hang it in her room.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to end missions that doesn't involve a present but is still satisfying; it's not fair to her younger sib and would probably not be parent-approved. Hmm.

In less good news, @space-parasite's beloved Chantilly cat is ailing and has lost a great deal of weight. We've been giving him subcutaneous fluids every night for a couple weeks now and he seems to have more energy and be drinking more, but he still turns up his nose at both the thyroid food and the new kidney kibble. Hopefully the vet will have some ideas next week and his numbers won't be as bad as I fear :/

Creamy sundried tomato chicken, redux: still full of win
Roasted brown butter honey garlic carrots: win! finally, a use for those bags of "baby carrots" that I never manage to finish with salad!
Tilapia with tomato basil topping: Okay but not great. The chopped tomato-basil topping was good in its own right but cold and didn't really integrate well with the fish.
Stirfy: I have developed a method that takes two woks, one for the marinated chicken and onions and one for the vegetables and egg. The vegetable half gets soy sauced and then rice is mixed into each,and finally they're combined. Reliable and filling.
Roasted butternut squash sauteed with onions and leftover chicken breast, served over stuffing: Much better than you'd expect, given that I only realized it was butternut and not spaghetti squash when it failed to mush into strands after baking.

@space-parasite bought a full-sized Instant Pot! Now the full range of possible culinary depredations expands before me!

Current Music: Crucible of Gold, Novik

Small amounts of progress on the things I should be doing; which is a relief - it feels like something has unwedged a little inside me. Now I need to make the momentum last.

No more bugs spotted, yay! I still carry a big stick (it's a rain stick, a lovely-sounding thing) when getting up at night just in case, but hopefully the exterminator got them all. And I'm so tired of being irrationally scared that if I do see one hopefully I will just trap it under an upside-down container and go back to bed.

New reads: more Temeraire (still fun, though it's starting to strain belief that the protagonist has survived so much without damaging his health in such a low-tech era), plus Uprooted by the same author and the first of Bujold's Penric stories. I started a 2019 reading list just for the pleasure of seeing it grow. And I'm rereading the Fruits Basket manga for the nth time. It's a story I come back to again and again to marvel at how deftly the author weaves from a fluffy cute-talking-animal exterior inward to pain and darkness, not gratuitously but to say yes, I see you. This is what it's like to grow up in a broken and abusive family. The little ways you try to help yourselves and each other, the roles you play, the coping strategies that look like overdramatic acting out to people on the outside. The terrible secrets you share. And what a miracle it seems like when someone "outside" accepts and likes you as you are, and you can start to change. It's like 23 volumes of exquisitely drawn stealth therapy. :)

(That said, I suspect some people would be put off by a couple of characters who could be gay or trans, but nonetheless get straight romances and default pronouns. And...well, Tumblr discourse can object to anything including things I'd never have thought of, so there's not much point making a list.)

Orange maple chicken and rice: Tasty. Might actually be better with bottled juice instead of fresh-squeezed.
Homemade pasta sauce with ground turkey, milk, diced tomatoes and wine: OK but not really better than a jar of sauce.
Salmon baked with lemon slices and dill: Utterly simple and full of yum.
Fingerling potatoes pressure-cooked and then sauteed with onions: WIN.

...Wow, the third season finale of RWBY is really doomed. Like "did Gen Urobochi work on this?" level of doom. I guess this is one of those shows where no character is protected by Plot Armor. (Except falling damage, you're apparently given blanket immunity to that when you enroll in hero school.)

Current Music: Tongues of Serpents

Ugh. On the positive side, I'm not actively freaking out. On the other hand, the over-two-inches reddish brown R-bug-look-I-don't-even-wanna-type-the-word I just did battle with is STILL IN MY BEDROOM. It did not come up through the drain grating despite what the exterminator theorized, not at that size, and it didn't seem very bothered at all by repeated hits of Raid spray. (which is now in the carpet, and while the cats don't come in here, my feet will inevitably track some of it out. oh dear.)

As long as I keep the lights on, it'll probably stay hidden, but I can't keep them on forever. Will it go back to its usual bathroom haunt or switch careers to menacing me in here? When my long-suffering flatmate gets up in an hour, should I ask them to flail about with a stick and try to drive it into the open again? Now that I know it's Raid-immune, the best option seems to be trapping it under weighted-down tupperware and calling the landlord. What if it finds a cozy home in one of the cardboard boxes? Why do the damned things charge at you when you spray them instead of running away? ARGH.

Ahem.

(One piece of advice from the exterminator that seems sound: we should all be opening our delivery packages outside and throwing away the packaging at once, as hitchhikers are increasingly common.)

In less fraught news, I'm really enjoying the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik, and have finally got my hands on the first Penric book from the library. Why did I resist ebooks for so long? They're incredibly convenient, and while it's still more satisfying to touch and hold real books, reading at length on an ipad isn't as hard for my eyes as I thought it would be. My reading in 2019 is going to increase tenfold.

Risotto with shrimp, sausage, onion, peas: Moderate success, too much paprika on shrimp.
Sundried tomato cream sauce chicken thighs: WIN. Next time, try with pasta instead of rice.
Salmon with creamy lemon dill sauce: WIN. Extra sauce eaten with pasta: DOUBLE WIN.
Snap peas with lemon zest and thyme: Tasty, but more work than it's really worth. Simply microwaving the peas works fine.
Spaghetti squash cubes, microwaved with oregano and basil: Not my favorite, but an adequate vegetable.

RWBY definitely got better after the first season, in both writing and animation quality. The music is good enough that I've been listening to the vocal tracks on Spotify most nights. We're more than midway through season 2 and while the characters are all still familiar archetypes, I can't entirely predict the story beats anymore and am genuinely curious to see what they'll do. Apparently every character is derived from a different fairy tale; I don't want to spoil anyone so I won't mention the ones I know so far, but they've gone in some nifty directions. The niece is going to love RWBY when she's ready for it - that might take another year, though, since after the first few episodes the violence level went up.

(Update: Flatmate very kindly flailed with stick, but the bug has gone to ground. ARGH.)

Current Mood: ARGH
Current Music: Victory of Eagles

Lurching onward. Last weekend we got to play a little bit of the game I've been running for my niece; she's growing up surrounded by gamers and the grownup weekly D&D night is a comfortable part of her existence, but she's never been given a chance to play herself. I wanted to change that. So Trip got her a copy of No Thank You, Evil and we've been having fun going through my improvised campaign when her schedule permits.

Although we started off with formal character sheets and rules, things devolved quickly into more freeform shared storytelling with some casual dice rolls. I wonder if I should have tried to stick to the rules more - it's going to be a shock the first time she plays in someone else's game and is told that no, she can't just declare that she has an interesting new power - but I didn't want her to lose interest, and she's having fun. The other players are Trip and a pair of stuffed lizards, and we are hunting down an evil or at least socially irresponsible wizard with an overdue library book.

Food! I'm getting the hang of this. Last night was two of the lemon butter paprika chicken thighs cooked in the instant pot and spaghetti squash microwaved and mixed with rosemary and parmesan, and rice. Tonight, the other two thighs sauteed? braised? cooked in the wok, anyway, with tomatoes and onions and a lot of balsamic vinegar and spices. And sauteed zucchini with garlic. And rice. We eat a lot of brown rice.

The Dragon Prince ended a bit abruptly after nine episodes. Fortunately season 2 starts next month. I still like it, though later episodes lose points for atrociously bad wilderness survival skills. It did get dark a lot faster than ATLA; I won't be recommending it for niece after all.

Current Music: Black Powder War

Painfully slow resume edit: done!

Job targets: acquired!

Lemon parmesan quasi-risotto: tasty! More recipes should come with notes for the forgetful, though, such as "don't dump out that rice water, you will want it again three paragraphs down."

Pesto breadcrumb-parmesan salmon: also tasty, though next time less pesto and more breadcrumb. Do not believe scandalous lies in recipe about cooking time and temperature.

The Dragon Prince episodes 1-5: Pretty neat! I wonder why I haven't seen any buzz about it on my Tumblr dashboard, in contrast to She-Ra which is all over the place. The deaf general was handled interestingly - her aide only translates when there's at least one character present who would need it. When he doesn't, I have the choice to treat it as information the narrative isn't telling me, or try to figure it out, or look up the fan translations the writers had to know would be available. All the options get me thinking about ASL and communication challenges.

The writing certainly isn't groundbreaking, but it's intelligent enough and more complex than that of She-Ra, which I felt left major holes in the plot and worldbuilding because the writers assumed the target audience was too young to notice and the messaging was more important. (Not saying they were wrong on either count, mind.)

The Ancient Magus' Bride anime and manga: Very good indeed. In hindsight, I really appreciate the review on AnimeFeminist which said "after watching the first episode you are going WTF with all the side-eye. Please trust that this show knows what it is doing." They were right. At the same time I know a lot of people are going to look at it and see another Beauty and the Beast story with a toxic, codependent relationship. Can't blame them But what I see is a gentle but firm subversion of those tropes, a story of two damaged and undersocialized people who make a safe place together and value each other and keep improving. And their friends who support them in different ways, including calling each of them out on their flaws.

(And, of course, the terrifying and beautiful and numinous supernatural world. Chise is not the first character I've met who has been continually terrorized by Japanese folklore monsters that no one else can see, and who has always been shunned for it until she finds a safe(r) place. There's an interesting essay possibility somewhere in there about Ancient Magus' Bride, Natsume's Book of Friends, and what this trope might be metaphorically representing. I should look to see if someone has written it already.)

Current Music: Black Powder War

Oops. I have a lot of catching up to do, Hope everyone had good holidays and that you are all safe and warm as we lurch into 2019. 2019, you better suck less than last year did. (It's not an auspicious start so far, anywhere in the world, but c'mon. The bar is low.)

Short recap: I survived the family visit and the big party, got home safe, was sick with travel crud for a week but well enough by Christmas to enjoy it, and had a lovely low-key NYE with the traditional fondue of friends. Since then life has been about trying to force myself to apply for jobs and avoidance strategies thereof. (Thanks to the Internet, now I know that other people have the same mental weasels about tasks and that they are called executive function disorder. But knowing why it's hard doesn't make the task go away.)

One of the classic spirals people get into, apparently (it's not just me!) is to identify the Big Scary Impossible Task to be blocked on and then hang everything else off it as subsidiaries. Can't update Dreamwidth, I should be working on my resume. I'll contact my old coworkers after I have a working cover letter draft. Well, I can't send what I have to friends for advice YET, it has to be in better shape. Library books, I do not deserve them till this is done. Etc. This can lead into some dark nonfunctional states. Fortunately it works in reverse too: small tasks give energy and momentum to do others, and then bigger ones.

And at the end of the day I may still not have a job, but I am full of two kinds of experimental grilled cheese (mozzarella-tomato-basil and apple-caramelized-onion) and the dishes are mostly done. And I successfully visited my old job early this morning to meet with ex-coworkers from the night shift and confirm they aren't upset with me. And I'm updating Dreamwidth and have written a whole two sentences on that fanfic WIP I'm stuck on, and read lots of Ask-A-Manager archive posts and reshuffled the resume. The day is not a loss.

Current Music: The Ancient Magus' Bride

Bah, I'm pretty sure I messed up on the presents by overestimating reading levels. Good thing there's still a couple of days left - back to the bookstore tomorrow. Today was clothes shopping. Meh. If such a large percentage of Americans are obese and it's a terrible crisis(tm), why is it that every mall has at least 30 clothing stores for skinny people only and 1 segregated Fat Woman Store with a lousy selection?

I have hopes for eshakti later, as their catalog looks quite fetching. (Neither cheap nor quick, though, oy.)

Dinner: salmon baked in hoisin-soy sauce plus roasted fingerling potatoes with rosemary and garlic. Verdict: tasty but sauce somewhat overwhelming. Try with rice next time. My attempt to pan-roast garlic was a dismal failure, all the cloves were burnt and bitter. Not sure what I did wrong.

Trip and I watched the first three episodes of Adventure Time, and we are, well, baffled. What is the appeal? Everyone on Tumblr was burbling about the show for months, so I figured it must have clever storytelling, but... (To be fair, I was slightly baffled by Steven Universe for the first few episodes too. But not this much.)

Current Music: Bards of the Bone Plain

Manicotti is tricky. I screwed up first when the noodles fell apart while boiling (solution: take them out while still undercooked and let them finish up in the oven stage) and then again while filling them with the cheese mixture (solution: squeeze out filling from a freezer bag with a small corner cut off). But they were tasty in the end, if not pretty-looking.

I have presents! A simple board book for the youngest, Max Has a Fish for the next, Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse for the next, and Un Lun Dun for the eldest. Slightly worried that Un Lun Dun might be a bit intense, but I wanted to give her a book that I'd genuinely enjoyed for myself and not just "here's an age-appropriate-labeled book object from another grownup".

(I do chafe at the age restrictions on books sometimes, though I am good and obey them because after all I'm not the parent. When I was a kid I read every single thing I could get my hands on. Sometimes that turned out to be a really bad idea, especially with no one to talk to about what I read, but mostly they stretched my brain all different ways and lit the fires of my soul for life. But the kids I know now don't just have more protection, they have a million more options for entertainment. They don't want to work as hard at reading - and there's no reason they should have to. They'll grow up with their own beloved stories. )

Anime night this week:

Started BBK/BNK, which looks like an interestingly different take on the giant robots genre
Love, Chuunibiyo and Other Delusions Cute, but not especially my jam.
Non Non Byori Same.

Current Music: Steerswoman's Road (reread)

If anyone plays the fashion game Love Nikki or feels like giving it a try, I've got an association with open slots. It's held my interest for a surprisingly long time: lots to do, no need to spend actual money, and a plot that's finally getting interesting to go with all the pretty costumes. Ping me if you're interested or just join the ToastStyle association. :)

Things that are good right now:

Excellent friends who don't mind my brainweasels and buy me cookbooks (How to Cook Everything)
Fluffy cats who forgive me for refusing to lapsnuggle and shooing them out of the bioexclusion zone
Over the Garden Wall, which was much more charming and less horror than one would guess at first
Rewatching Steven Universe and appreciating all the little bits I missed the first time
Butter-baked cod with dill
The excellent 54-chapter My Hero Academia fic that successfully distracted me for over 48 hours of bingereading

Current Music: Steerswoman's Road (reread)

Anime night successful! Nephew delighted by new mermaid tail sleeping bag; niece and I played the game where she pretends to be the outrageously misbehaving gymnasts in a competition and I play the long-suffering judges and crowd. We had so much fun that there was no time for the ritual watching of Sailor Moon together, but she didn't seem to mind much.

(I really wish now that I'd written down all the pretend games we've played together since she was tiny. Hindsight...)

There are no more new My Hero Academia episodes to watch and it is all our own fault for ignoring the usual schedule and bingewatching it every weekend. It's just so freakin' charming - I haven't seen another show revitalize the standard shonen tropes quite like it.

The day's only real achievement: finally investigating the mysterious device known as the Instant Pot and using it to cook hard-boiled eggs, which then became egg salad. This would've worked better if there was any bread to put it on, mind you, but I am a barbarian and ate it anyway with the caramelized onions.

Current Music: Steerswoman's Road (reread)

I used to dye my hair (burgundy) with a home kit years ago, until I realized my dexterity was not up to the task, and now I remember why. Good lord salon coloring is EXPENSIVE. Instead of my tumbled mess of everything from blonde to dark brown to flat grey to silver, I now have this straight fall of cinnamon that behaves meekly when brushed. It did make a difference - I think a stranger might take me for ten years younger, now.

The Steerswoman books are still enjoyable, though now that I know the twists and have read bunch more other top-class SF they don't awe me anymore. I find myself increasingly remembering that SF is as much about the world the author lives in as it is about the future world they're imagining. Ten years ago I didn't notice so much, but in the first few chapters Rowan meets an arrogant guy who treats her as a servant, has an argument with a male colleague who reflexively insists he cannot possibly be wrong and who is she to tell him how to steers, and watches another male colleague hit on the head of the order in a meeting, like he has a thousand times before, and have to be put off gently with due respect for his feelings like a thousand times before. It's thousands of years in the future in an unknown place, and yet it's like looking into another sort of mirror. (But now I'm in the Outskirts,and I remember those parts as being delightfully different and vivid; I wonder what will jump out to my eye now?)

No cooking last night because I was tired, though I did caramelize some onions. Did you know there is apparently a low-grade Onion Conspiracy among recipe sites? No one wants to admit that it can take 45 minutes to get them properly browned and sweet, because that doesn't make for an alluringly clickable Easy Weeknight Dinner, so they all lie and say 10-15 minutes. It is very confusing to the novice cook.

Tonight, friends and anime!

Current Music: Steerswoman's Road (reread)

It seems a lifetime ago since the friendly warm days of Livejournal, doesn't it? My memory definitely has some rose-colored lenses in place, but there was a friendslist and we shared what was going on in our lives and made supportive comments. Involved, chewy, rambling discussions about interesting topics. I definitely remember those. :) Tumblr is engaging in its own way, but I'm starting to think the constant deluge of negative information may be feeding the anxiety weasels at a time when they're already quite plump and sleek enough, thank you.

Notes about my day aren't likely to interest anyone else, and there's a part of me that wants to stop right now (stop me before I bore again!) But no. Right now, I need things to ground me in the here and now, to keep my mind from drifting away into dissociative fog. And one of the best ways to do that is to keep a record. I was here, I did stuff. Therefore I am here, I do stuff. I will be here, I WILL do stuff, you hear that, brain?

And I do have positive things to keep track of: Food and books! A few months ago, I moved in with most supportive and awesome friendbrother Trip. This means (1) someone else's library to read through and (2) someone else to cook for. After nearly twenty-five years of solitary frozen pizza, I am learning to cook. It is amazing.

So what did I do today? I made an appointment for a spiffy professional job-hunting haircut complete with dye job, since apparently grey hairs count against one in interviews. Tried to get oil changed and settled for an appointment tomorrow. And got myself a new card from the tiny branch library here, so small that mystery and sf are shelved intermixed and there isn't much of the latter. But I did score two McKillips I haven't read yet.

Salmon is brining, to be cooked soon in parchment paper with garlic and butter and lemon and onions. Potatoes are scrubbed and soaking in water and will be roasted with more garlic and onions. Onions, I have discovered, go with everything except maybe desserts. They are the ultimate universal vegetable. How did I never realize?

And I wrote this. ...You know, that is kind of a respectable amount of stuff. Good job, brain.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Steerswoman's Road (reread)