Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 69
August 1, 2021
Settling In
I am still battling the post office and the Catch-22 of not having a PO Box yet, my home address being un-deliverable and invisible to computers, and trying to get my goddamn bills on autopay or at least email notification since that's the only way I can pay them, as bills sent by snail mail will vanish into the ether where apparently my house is located.
Other than that, I am LOVING country life. The blue jays are hopping around my deck right now, the deck itself is a great place to write, and I'm having a ton of fun renovating the house and garden. It turns out that I'm not quite as un-handy as I'd thought when I don't have either my father screaming at me that I'm stupid and doing it wrong or the knowledge that anything I do wrong will be deducted from my security deposit.
Yesterday I removed a hideous towel rack and a bizarre giant oval mirror which isn't even full-length, but just shows my face and a lot of shower curtain from my bathroom, using only my hands and a knife to substitute as a screwdriver as my tool kit is somewhere in Mariposa. I am going to replace them with a beautiful little wooden cabinet/towel rack which I bought at an antique shop, once I make some minor repairs to it and buy an actual screwdriver and some screws.
Pics on Instagram.
I am reveling in fixing up my space and solitude and trees. So many magnificent trees.
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Other than that, I am LOVING country life. The blue jays are hopping around my deck right now, the deck itself is a great place to write, and I'm having a ton of fun renovating the house and garden. It turns out that I'm not quite as un-handy as I'd thought when I don't have either my father screaming at me that I'm stupid and doing it wrong or the knowledge that anything I do wrong will be deducted from my security deposit.
Yesterday I removed a hideous towel rack and a bizarre giant oval mirror which isn't even full-length, but just shows my face and a lot of shower curtain from my bathroom, using only my hands and a knife to substitute as a screwdriver as my tool kit is somewhere in Mariposa. I am going to replace them with a beautiful little wooden cabinet/towel rack which I bought at an antique shop, once I make some minor repairs to it and buy an actual screwdriver and some screws.
Pics on Instagram.
I am reveling in fixing up my space and solitude and trees. So many magnificent trees.
comments
July 28, 2021
The blue jays have discovered the bird feeders
I have two of them pecking away right now.
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July 26, 2021
First day at the new house
Last night was my first night at my house, camping out on a pair of stacked futons. I woke up in the middle of the night to the delightful sound of rain. My garden was parched so that was very welcome. (Alas, the rest of the week is dry and high 80 degrees F.)
Here is an Instagram link to a set of photos of the progress of a room.
I cannot wait to get the rest of the logistical stuff out of the way (sending in paperwork for water, setting up my PO box, picking up my cats from Halle, etc) so I can relax and enjoy my home. Sooooon....
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Here is an Instagram link to a set of photos of the progress of a room.
I cannot wait to get the rest of the logistical stuff out of the way (sending in paperwork for water, setting up my PO box, picking up my cats from Halle, etc) so I can relax and enjoy my home. Sooooon....
comments
July 20, 2021
Oblique or lower back strain exercise request
With perfect timing given that I'm moving this week, I strained a muscle that I have never strained before.
I always lift with good form and I've been moving heavy objects for the last six months with no problems, so I'm not sure what happened. However, it did happen after I moved a bunch of heavy objects in extreme heat (over 100 F), so maybe the heat relaxed my muscles too much? Is that even possible?
Anyway, the part that hurts is my right lower back a couple inches above where the butt ends, diagonally wrapping around to my side (lower on my side, higher on my back). Is that the oblique?
I have done the ice-and-rest-and-heat thing as much as possible. I think it's time to start PT. Please rec suitable exercises. The rest of my lower back also hurts though not as much, so general low-back exercises are also good.
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I always lift with good form and I've been moving heavy objects for the last six months with no problems, so I'm not sure what happened. However, it did happen after I moved a bunch of heavy objects in extreme heat (over 100 F), so maybe the heat relaxed my muscles too much? Is that even possible?
Anyway, the part that hurts is my right lower back a couple inches above where the butt ends, diagonally wrapping around to my side (lower on my side, higher on my back). Is that the oblique?
I have done the ice-and-rest-and-heat thing as much as possible. I think it's time to start PT. Please rec suitable exercises. The rest of my lower back also hurts though not as much, so general low-back exercises are also good.
comments
July 19, 2021
Got a favorite bird bath?
Or bat house? Squirrel feeder? Plant that bees or butterflies go nuts over (California natives preferred)? Or anything else along those lines? Please recommend your favorite bird, animal, or beneficial insect attractor!
NOTE: I am living in Crestline, California, which is in the San Bernardino mountains. My property has a big lot with huge incense cedars and plenty of space to grow. It has four seasons, including very hot summers and winters with snow. We are currently experiencing an extreme drought and birds and other critters could really use a source of water.
OTHER NOTE: I closely monitor wild animal and bird news. There is currently no bird epidemic being spread by bird baths in California. If it hits California, I will of course remove anything spreading disease.
Birds found in Crestline. We also have raccoons, bears, coyotes, and the usual assortment of California mountain critters. I would ideally like to NOT attract bears, though I realize that leaving food outside is never totally safe.
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NOTE: I am living in Crestline, California, which is in the San Bernardino mountains. My property has a big lot with huge incense cedars and plenty of space to grow. It has four seasons, including very hot summers and winters with snow. We are currently experiencing an extreme drought and birds and other critters could really use a source of water.
OTHER NOTE: I closely monitor wild animal and bird news. There is currently no bird epidemic being spread by bird baths in California. If it hits California, I will of course remove anything spreading disease.
Birds found in Crestline. We also have raccoons, bears, coyotes, and the usual assortment of California mountain critters. I would ideally like to NOT attract bears, though I realize that leaving food outside is never totally safe.
comments
July 14, 2021
Guns of the Dawn, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A rare singleton from Tchaikovsky, and also a book with shockingly few bugs - I think the only bug content in the entire book is a couple giant dragonflies and a single dog-sized hairy spider that appears in exactly one scene.
In a vaguely Napoleonic time period, impoverished aristocrat Emily Marshwic lives with her two sisters, her younger brother, and her brother-in-law. Her biggest problems are her lack of money, her flighty younger sister's habit of running away every time she feels especially aggrieved, and the family feud with the mayor, Mr. Northway, whom they blame for their father's suicide after he lost all the family money.
Then war breaks out. All patriotic men of age volunteer... and mostly don't come back. A draft is instituted to scoop up the men of age who didn't volunteer. Emily's teenage brother volunteers and her brother-in-law is drafted. Then the draft is widened to encompass younger and older men. But it's still not enough. In the midst of privation and desperation, the draft is widened to include women. Rather than feeding a terrified young servant into that meatgrinder, Emily volunteers, and is sent to the swamp part of the front.
An excellent war novel and study of leadership in a horrendous war of attrition. The fantasy aspect of the book is comparatively minor--the king has a magical ability to create mages, and there are native people of the world who are not human--but it's primarily an alternate history of a war that might have been.
It's an extremely intense book, especially once you realize the reason why Emily is the main character. ( Read more... )
Emily is an unreliable narrator of the variety who tells the absolute truth as she sees it, but who may believe things that aren't correct. You can tell early on that she probably doesn't have a full picture of exactly what went down and why regarding her father's suicide, and it becomes increasingly clear that she takes the party line about the reasons for the war at face value. Which leads to another interesting (very spoilery!) aspect of the book:
( Read more... )
A vivid, suspenseful, intense, dark yet ultimately hopeful novel.
Warning for attempted rape and standard war novel content.
[image error]
comments
In a vaguely Napoleonic time period, impoverished aristocrat Emily Marshwic lives with her two sisters, her younger brother, and her brother-in-law. Her biggest problems are her lack of money, her flighty younger sister's habit of running away every time she feels especially aggrieved, and the family feud with the mayor, Mr. Northway, whom they blame for their father's suicide after he lost all the family money.
Then war breaks out. All patriotic men of age volunteer... and mostly don't come back. A draft is instituted to scoop up the men of age who didn't volunteer. Emily's teenage brother volunteers and her brother-in-law is drafted. Then the draft is widened to encompass younger and older men. But it's still not enough. In the midst of privation and desperation, the draft is widened to include women. Rather than feeding a terrified young servant into that meatgrinder, Emily volunteers, and is sent to the swamp part of the front.
An excellent war novel and study of leadership in a horrendous war of attrition. The fantasy aspect of the book is comparatively minor--the king has a magical ability to create mages, and there are native people of the world who are not human--but it's primarily an alternate history of a war that might have been.
It's an extremely intense book, especially once you realize the reason why Emily is the main character. ( Read more... )
Emily is an unreliable narrator of the variety who tells the absolute truth as she sees it, but who may believe things that aren't correct. You can tell early on that she probably doesn't have a full picture of exactly what went down and why regarding her father's suicide, and it becomes increasingly clear that she takes the party line about the reasons for the war at face value. Which leads to another interesting (very spoilery!) aspect of the book:
( Read more... )
A vivid, suspenseful, intense, dark yet ultimately hopeful novel.
Warning for attempted rape and standard war novel content.
[image error]
comments
July 10, 2021
Dear AU Exchanger
I am a very easy recipient so please don't stress over this. I adore AUs so I am easy to please.
I'm requesting fic for everything. But if anyone feels moved to give me an art treat, that would be delightful!
Feel free to use more than one prompt or combine prompts within fandom requests.
( General Likes. )
( General DNWs. )
( Dark Tower - Stephen King )
( Malory Towers )
( The Punisher (2017 TV) )
( The Stand - Stephen King )
( The Wilds )
comments
I'm requesting fic for everything. But if anyone feels moved to give me an art treat, that would be delightful!
Feel free to use more than one prompt or combine prompts within fandom requests.
( General Likes. )
( General DNWs. )
( Dark Tower - Stephen King )
( Malory Towers )
( The Punisher (2017 TV) )
( The Stand - Stephen King )
( The Wilds )
comments
July 9, 2021
Perdita, by Isabelle Holland
"Perdita Smith" is discovered at the bottom of a well with assorted fractures and total amnesia. After what in retrospect was the world's most perfunctory search turns up no clues to her identity, she is taken in by friendly nuns.
When driving with a nun, Perdita sees someone riding and remarks that she rides well, and so realizes that she knows something about horses. In the hope of getting a clue about her identity and also because she needs a job, she obtains a position at a local stable with a bad reputation (all the good ones were highly suspicious of her lack of credentials).
There she meets the manipulative owner, the owner's sullen teenage son, the owner's sweet young daughter who's terrified of riding, the sexy asshole who's the son of the dead previous owner, the golden-boy rider who's some relation I forget, the drunk stablehand, and a kitten who sneaks in at night to cuddle with Perdita and sneaks out before she can get a good look at her. The kitten was my favorite character and I was very aggravated that Holland forgot it existed at some point and we never get a good look at it.
If you have read any books by Holland involving a romance, you know that whichever hot dude initially appears to be the biggest asshole is going to be the love interest. (He may actually be an asshole, but he won't have actually murdered his wife.) Sexy asshole it is! Perdita whipsaws so much on whether she thinks he's evil or not that at one point she says "Though I hated him with every fiber of my being..." and I had to flip back to confirm that Holland had indeed lost track and the previous scene had Perdita deciding that he was clearly a good guy who was being blackmailed.
The amnesia and riding parts of the story are lots of fun, especially the subplot involving the girl who's scared of riding. (The kid does, in fact, have zero interest in riding as a sport, but Perdita gets her onboard by getting her to bond with her horse as a friend.) The suspense bits were distinctly pasted on yay.
( Read more... )
[image error]
comments
When driving with a nun, Perdita sees someone riding and remarks that she rides well, and so realizes that she knows something about horses. In the hope of getting a clue about her identity and also because she needs a job, she obtains a position at a local stable with a bad reputation (all the good ones were highly suspicious of her lack of credentials).
There she meets the manipulative owner, the owner's sullen teenage son, the owner's sweet young daughter who's terrified of riding, the sexy asshole who's the son of the dead previous owner, the golden-boy rider who's some relation I forget, the drunk stablehand, and a kitten who sneaks in at night to cuddle with Perdita and sneaks out before she can get a good look at her. The kitten was my favorite character and I was very aggravated that Holland forgot it existed at some point and we never get a good look at it.
If you have read any books by Holland involving a romance, you know that whichever hot dude initially appears to be the biggest asshole is going to be the love interest. (He may actually be an asshole, but he won't have actually murdered his wife.) Sexy asshole it is! Perdita whipsaws so much on whether she thinks he's evil or not that at one point she says "Though I hated him with every fiber of my being..." and I had to flip back to confirm that Holland had indeed lost track and the previous scene had Perdita deciding that he was clearly a good guy who was being blackmailed.
The amnesia and riding parts of the story are lots of fun, especially the subplot involving the girl who's scared of riding. (The kid does, in fact, have zero interest in riding as a sport, but Perdita gets her onboard by getting her to bond with her horse as a friend.) The suspense bits were distinctly pasted on yay.
( Read more... )
[image error]
comments
July 8, 2021
We Sold Our Souls, by Grady Hendrix. Audiobook read by Carol Monda.
Twenty years ago, Kris Pulaski was the lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a metal band teetering on the brink of breakout. Today she's a beaten-down clerk at Best Western whose guitar is stashed in her closet like a hidden corpse. After a night none of the band members can fully remember, all of their lives went to hell - except for that of Terry Hunt, the lead singer who is now the superstar front man for a sell-out band called Koffin.
After a series of bad-to-worse events during the lead-up to Koffin's farewell tour, Kris realizes that something very strange and bad happened on that night. What exactly was in the contract that broke up the band? Why did Terry bury Troglodyte, the album Kris wrote, and why is he so determined that it stay buried? So she picks up her guitar, puts on her bones (a black leather jacket painted with a spinal column and ribs), and sets out to find out exactly what's going on...
Kris is a fantastic character, a middle-aged woman who loves heavy metal, loved to play the guitar, and is one of the most determined characters I've ever encountered in fiction. The more she gets knocked down, the more she gets back up again. This, she says, is the spirit of heavy metal. I don't like metal, but Kris makes it come alive and feel like something worth fighting for - random umlauts and all.
Troglodyte and its associated mythology, in which Black Iron Mountain is the hole in the center of the world with its soul-crushing machinery and Troglodyte is the chained hero who glimpses something better, is central to the book and crucial to Kris. We get enough of its lyrics and descriptions of the music that it's very convincing as a real album and one which believably would make an impression on people who are into metal. (There's a hilarious running thread in which radio hosts argue over whether the album is actually any good or not.)
There are some weird plotholes and dangling threads, and the climax of the middle is better than the climax at the end. But it's a deeply satisfying, gripping book with a great ending, and Kris Pulaski is an absolutely fantastic character. Carol Monda reads the book with the exact right voice for a middle-aged woman who's seen some shit and is sick of taking it.
Warning for sexual assault, forced institutionalization, suicide, bugs, bats, and gore. And probably other things I've forgotten.
[image error]
comments
After a series of bad-to-worse events during the lead-up to Koffin's farewell tour, Kris realizes that something very strange and bad happened on that night. What exactly was in the contract that broke up the band? Why did Terry bury Troglodyte, the album Kris wrote, and why is he so determined that it stay buried? So she picks up her guitar, puts on her bones (a black leather jacket painted with a spinal column and ribs), and sets out to find out exactly what's going on...
Kris is a fantastic character, a middle-aged woman who loves heavy metal, loved to play the guitar, and is one of the most determined characters I've ever encountered in fiction. The more she gets knocked down, the more she gets back up again. This, she says, is the spirit of heavy metal. I don't like metal, but Kris makes it come alive and feel like something worth fighting for - random umlauts and all.
Troglodyte and its associated mythology, in which Black Iron Mountain is the hole in the center of the world with its soul-crushing machinery and Troglodyte is the chained hero who glimpses something better, is central to the book and crucial to Kris. We get enough of its lyrics and descriptions of the music that it's very convincing as a real album and one which believably would make an impression on people who are into metal. (There's a hilarious running thread in which radio hosts argue over whether the album is actually any good or not.)
There are some weird plotholes and dangling threads, and the climax of the middle is better than the climax at the end. But it's a deeply satisfying, gripping book with a great ending, and Kris Pulaski is an absolutely fantastic character. Carol Monda reads the book with the exact right voice for a middle-aged woman who's seen some shit and is sick of taking it.
Warning for sexual assault, forced institutionalization, suicide, bugs, bats, and gore. And probably other things I've forgotten.
[image error]
comments
July 7, 2021
rachelmanija @ 2021-07-07T16:12:00
After spending a day in the ER and getting a lot of fluids infused into me, I feel much better.
They are still testing, so far I have tested positive for campylobacter. F- experience, do not recommend.
I expect to also turn up positive for E. coli, as one of my roommates has gotten more tests back and has tested positive for both that and campylobacter.
Source is currently unknown but we suspect a restaurant delivery. We didn't all eat the same food but it's possible the same person handled all our food. Other possibilities include bagged greens (would have been a long incubation period though) and a plumbing issue causing sewage to back up into the bathroom sink. It was scrubbed and everyone scrubbed their hands, but maybe some particles got missed?
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They are still testing, so far I have tested positive for campylobacter. F- experience, do not recommend.
I expect to also turn up positive for E. coli, as one of my roommates has gotten more tests back and has tested positive for both that and campylobacter.
Source is currently unknown but we suspect a restaurant delivery. We didn't all eat the same food but it's possible the same person handled all our food. Other possibilities include bagged greens (would have been a long incubation period though) and a plumbing issue causing sewage to back up into the bathroom sink. It was scrubbed and everyone scrubbed their hands, but maybe some particles got missed?
comments
