juliet | Network

It's been busy times in the garden! I got the last of my cold-stratified seeds planted last night. On Sunday we took on the big project of replacing the old wooden bed out by the street that's been slowly rotting away and was full of grass anyway. It's all concrete underneath, and the bed was too shallow to be able to plant anything substantial, much less anything that I'd feel comfortable harvesting. In it's place we put in four 2x2 corrugated steel beds that are much taller, and there's space for another 3-4 small beds of that size if we decide we like how these first ones are working. Still some cleanup to do from that, but otherwise it's looking much better.

I've gotten the feverfew, oregano, and thyme settled in those new spaces, with the last bed ready for the tulsi seedlings whenever they're big enough to transplant. The nights are still getting quite cold, so I'm waiting a while longer before making the little things have to brave the weather. It's supposed to be a temperate variety that can handle our cooler temperatures, but I've previously only grown the more tropical tulsi, which makes me a little more cautious than I maybe need to be. I'll be curious to see how the varieties differ.

The elecampane officially survived the winter, which I'm very happy to see! I thought for sure I had lost it. It's much slower to wake than the rest of the garden. I'm not sure if that's just how it is, or if it's a function of the place where it's been planted. It seemed to lag behind other plants in growth last year, too, but I imagine the second year will tell me quite a bit about how it feels where it is.

There's plenty of maintenance work to do in the garden, but in terms of plants, it's back to a waiting game. All the big plant sales and swaps won't happen until May, and none of the seedlings are quite ready for transplant yet, so I shall bide my time and be patient. I still haven't quite decided where everything will go, or what else I'll buy when the sales come along. There's a real risk I'll run out of space, but at least the soil is amended and weeded and ready to go. Hurrah for warmer days!

Current Mood: chipper

$radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)$

radiantfracture

What is the name of the hockey team from ancient Uruk?

thistleingrey

Carobeth Laird, Encounter with an Angry God: Recollections of my life with John Peabody Harrington (1975)

Skimmed, partial---amidst the readings for one of my classes, I was reminded that an undergrad prof had mentioned Laird years ago. The prof said that Laird's book made Harrington sound both brilliant and "like ... not just a piece of work, but a pile of work."

I'd say that from Laird's text, it seems that Harrington was firmly neurodivergent, unable to connect with Laird, apt to project his mother ineffectually onto her (without understanding that he was doing so or that his repeated errors were painful for Laird), and lucky in benefiting as a white man from the work others did for him and around him. Yes, also quite bright, but the inability alongside it to balance schedule disruption and the undertaking of basic self-care, including regular meals, is awfully familiar from at least one person I've dated previously. He didn't "have to" learn it because others sort of handled it, until they didn't.

Laird downplays her own brilliance in the text, though it's clear that she knew herself. She managed to secure a divorce from Harrington in an era when her father could appear in court on her behalf.

The long-ago undergrad prof was a person with a teenaged child, at the time, and had recently divorced a husband who was a piece of work. Harrington's work was amazing, she said, though a lot of "Harrington's work" is only attributed to him---often by him, unfairly. She had been working on Harrington's work, including his letters, and--- The classroom full of students interested in Celtic studies blinked at her, she realized she'd hared off on a tangent, and we went back to how the late Romans wrote about, or misattributed stuff about, continental Celts. What Harrington worked principally on, and what the undergrad prof doubled in, was indigenous languages, mostly in California.

james

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

kaberett

Things I thought would be fine: continuing to use the coffee table as an ersatz bench while I try to source a proper one at less-than-new prices.

THINGS THAT WERE NOT FINE: guess.

(I am unharmed! The coffee table is... not. The previous session was fine!!! ... the previous session was 10-20lb lower in terms of what I was lifting.)

( special interest within )

musesfool

I was taken with the need to do an Orphan Black rewatch and there's so much I forgot! Tatiana Maslany is so good, which you all knew, and the supporting cast is *chef's kiss*. It makes very few missteps, and watching in marathon fashion means even storylines I disliked originally (CASTOR) work much better. It's on Netflix, so if you are in the mood and don't mind the grossout body horror, it's a good watch.

And this poem seemed fitting:

This Poem Will Get Me On Some Kind of Watchlist
by Jessie Lochrie

I'm dancing at a nightclub
when someone behind me
places a hand on my shoulder.
I assume it's a friend until
the hand slides down my chest.

Boiling with gin and rage
I grab his wrist, whip around,
and punch him in the jaw.
It doesn't land well—
I've never hit anyone before—
so I punch him in the gut,
just for good measure.

I look at him doubled over and spit
Never do that to a woman again,
and then I run. My friends laugh in the cab:
You punched a guy!
but I sit silent and burning.

In Crown Heights, in Union Square,
in South Williamsburg: men leer and
whistle and smack their lips.
I ignore them, or flip them off,
or tell them I'm married.

When they purr que guapa
I yell callate and they all laugh.
I can't tell if they're laughing at me
for being a white girl speaking bad
Spanish, or at the idea that anything
I say might actually shut them up.

In my impotent rage I dream of a world
where I am not public property. I would
start wars for my right to walk down a street
unafraid, a thousand wars for a single day
in which my body belongs to me alone.
An army raised against each cat call. A bullet
for every man who ever told me to smile.

***

Current Mood: still coughing
Current Music: Mets losing to the Dbacks

asakiyume

Last entry I mused on the mystique surrounding the Jack of Hearts. Is it just me? I asked.

sartorias and

pamaladean referred me to the Bob Dylan song "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts," which absolutely is right on target with what I was feeling, and Wakanomori pointed out to me that the Jacks are also known as Knaves, which also goes to the mystique. But best of all was when

smokingboot shared this song she'd written about each of the jacks. Truly marvelous! And she said I could feature it here, so, without further ado ...

The Jack-of-Hearts song, or maybe better called, the Jacks song, since it's about all of them, by

smokingboot!

Jack o'Hearts oh, Jack o'Hearts oh,
Each maiden you charm
My hopes you have broken
And my heart you disarm
If you swear you love me
I'll count that no harm
Jack o'Hearts oh, Jack o' Hearts oh,
Each maiden you charm!

Jack o'Diamonds, Jack o'Diamonds
You bagman you thief
You promise such plenty
It beggars belief
Then you wink at a penny
And bring all to grief
Jack o' Diamonds, Jack o' Diamonds
You bagman you thief!

Jack o'Clubs oh Jack o'Clubs oh
Work hard and you'll gain,
The world gladly gives you
much gold and more fame
If you risk it on a ticket
For sure you'll know shame
Jack o' Clubs oh, Jack o' Clubs oh
Work hard and you'll gain!

Jack o' Spades oh, Jack o Spades oh,
You cutthroat you knave!
More blood on your hands
than a barber's worst shave,
and if you ain't at the funeral
You're right by the grave.
Jack o' Spades oh, Jack o spades oh
You cutthroat you knave!

Four Jacks oh Four Jacks oh
Most sly in the land,
Whatever's to come oh
It won't be as planned.
Box clever my darlin'
And keep close your hand,
Four Jack oh Four Jacks oh
Most sly in the land!

sage

gnu MinoanMiss/RubyNye's Online Memorial
Go here to sign up & get the zoom link to Ny's Memorial for this Sunday, April 12th at 1pm EDT. I'll be there & I hope you will, too.

books
The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East by Andrew Scott Cooper. 2011. Edition with the 2015 preface. Not great, but some interesting details of the Nixon-Ford years.

The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran by Andrew Scott Cooper. 2016. Utterly misleading title. By and large, this is NOT HISTORY. This is a fawning, one-sided biography of the Pahlavi family. I mean, I'm sympathetic to Farah and the kids, but there's no need to write an apologia for the shah's actions. :(((

Decoding Iran’s Foreign Policy: Strategic Interests, Power and Influence by Ross Harrison. 2025. I'm just sitting here wondering what it would be like to have a president who's smart enough to read books like this one. It's been a while.

currently reading: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer. 2006. Imperialism is so gross.

yarning
Made the mushroom. Got the blue bunny put together and both in the mail. Waiting for more sales. Need to resume social media self-plugging. Here's something cute: Kitten Academy kittens doing a Statler & Waldorf on their mother's kickbunny:

healthcrap
Had Botox for migraines Friday. Usual doc wasn't there, and I couldn't recall the alterations we make to the standard protocol, so we'll see how this round works in their absence. Major cold front with torrential rain came in Friday night and knocked me flat for days. Had a much belated allergy shot Monday, which knocked me flat again.

#resist
I am utterly furious at the orange menace, Netanyahu, and their toadies.
May 1: No Kings 4 + general strike.

#astrology
Mars enters Aries on May 10, completing a major traffic jam of planets in Aries, sign of war, which has me exceptionally worried. Praying for peace.

I hope all of y'all are doing well and staying safe and sane and healthy. <333

polyrecsdaily_feed

https://polyrecsdaily.tumblr.com/post/813343102628691968

The Future in Five Conversations (Due South):

The Future in Five Conversations, by Dira Sudis. shrift: Hey, everybody! Dira wrote MOAR HOCKEY AU fic!

https://polyrecsdaily.tumblr.com/post/813343102628691968

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3230/

I think I accidentally installed an Overton window in my bedroom. A few months ago, the sun wasn't in my face in the morning, but now it is.

https://xkcd.com/3230/

senmut

Since I definitely dragged us down a less happy path, I'm going to invite a question here:

Regardless of creator intent, what CANON had a positive, lasting impression on how you shape the world around you?

(context was some unsavory authors came up)
Answers can be from ANY STYLE OF FICTIONAL MEDIA, though so far I am getting a lot of Books in my discord discussion.

My own may seem simplistic, and maybe childish, but Anna Sewell's Black Beauty had me questioning the social strata ALL AROUND me from a very young age, in the Deep South.

oliviacirce

I asked my wife how many poems about the moon I was allowed to post this week, and she said "all of them?" So we may have a week or so of moon poems, for obvious reasons. Since I missed yesterday, here are two.

( Why Are Your Poems So Dark? )

*

( Bless the Moon )

oursin

What I read

Finished Never Had It So Good, and while I am less whelmed than I was on first reading it 50 years ago (aaarrgh), and consider that as panoramic social novel of provincial life, does not quite reach the level of South Riding, yet, that is the comparison one thinks of. I also mark up Mr Jones in contrast to The Angry Young Men who were his contemporaries over a whole range of issues.

Finished Considering The Female Man by Joanna Russ, or, As the Bear Swore, which was fascinating, and very readable, but has not somehow inspired me to rush off and do a re-read.

Then thought I should really read Adania Shibli, Minor Detail (2017), for forthcoming in-person book group.

In hopes of a change from that - it's grim - read Marion Keyes, The Mystery of Mercy Close (Walsh Family, #5) (2012), a recent Kobo deal, which was itself not entirely the most cheerful read.

On the go

Amazon helpfully alerted me to Kindle-only publication of Alexis Hall, Never After, currently in progress, also not really bringing the delicious froth - opium-addicted Victorian rent-boy rescued from homelessness on the streets by clergyman (unexpected and unwanted 3rd son in aristo family, put him into the church) with his own backstory baggage.

Up next

There's a new Literary Review.

Also I had a mad binge on Kobo the other day, mostly Dick Francises which had come down to promotional prices, but I also finally succumbed to the most recent Edward St Aubyn which has been tempting me. The previous one was so much less gruesome than the Melrose sequence that perhaps this will be the change of pace I'm looking for?

james_davis_nicoll

Beatings to continue until CPC morale improves

devilc

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

wychwood

( 42. The Return of Fitzroy Angursell - Victoria Goddard ) I really liked this one - both as a view of his history and of his life as he steps away from being emperor. I'd like to re-read it and then follow up with the relevant parts of At the Feet of the Sun to see how they fit together, too.

( 43. Mountains of Fire - Clive Oppenheimer ) An interesting book; more human-focussed than I was expecting, but not in a bad way.

( 44. Something Human - AJ Demas ) Not my favourite Demas, but this was still pretty good.

( 45. Strange Houses - Uketsu ) The first book was weird in a fun way; this was mostly just weird, in the sense that even the characters that weren't supposed to be involved in creepiness are stranger than seemed at all reasonable.

( 46. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain ) Still relatively fun, though full of more horrible things than I'd remembered.

( 47. Irresponsible Adult - Lucy Dillon ) I can't quite call this a soothing read when Robyn starts out making so many mistakes, but it was satisfying and enjoyable.

( 48. Windmaster's Bane - Tom Deitz ) Not a bad example of its kind.

( 49. The Anglo-Saxons - Marc Morris ) A good survey of what we know about the basic history - kings and whatnot - of the era.

( 50. The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Green ) A delightful collection of extremely random reviews.

( 51. A Tempest of Tea - Hafsah Faizal ) Maybe it's just me, but I thought this was terrible.

( 52. The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson ) I just don't understand why any of the half-decent folk would stay.

( 53. James - Percival Everett ) I still don't think I really know what Everett wanted to do with this book, but I'm not at all sure it worked.

( 54. Moonstorm - Yoon Ha Lee ) Normally I love Lee's writing, but this just didn't quite work for me somehow.

( 55. Slow Horses - Mick Herron ) Well-done, but I'm just not going to be a spy fan.

( 56. The Republic of Salt - Ariel Kaplan ) I really thought this volume was going to actually finish the immediate story; more fool me.

( 57. Faerie Queene vol 1 - Edmund Spenser ) The first part of this was genuinely fun, but all of the moral / religious underpinnings are so confused. Interested to see where volume 2 goes.

( 58. Swordcrossed - Freya Marske ) This does a good job of earning the resolution; I enjoyed it.

( 59. Chalet School Reunion - Elinor M Brent-Dyer ) A fun chance to see various early pupils twenty years down the line.

( 60. Couple Goals - Kit Williams ) Cute sports romance! With a sapphic relationship as well as a het one.

glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fanart/fics/fanvids/other kinds of fanworks/fancrafts/podfics have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

justonecookbook_feed

Posted by Namiko Hirasawa Chen

https://www.justonecookbook.com/bok-choy-and-tofu-stir-fry/

https://www.justonecookbook.com/?p=275361

A bowl of bok choy and tofu stir-fry with mushrooms and savory sauce is served on a wooden tray with chopsticks and a cup of tea, beautifully presented in a white and blue flower-shaped bowl.

Bok Choy and Tofu Stir-Fry recipe—a plant-based weeknight dinner with tofu cutlet, crisp bok choy, and a savory ginger-garlic sauce. Ready in 20 minutes.

READ: Bok Choy and Tofu Stir-Fry (Video)

https://www.justonecookbook.com/bok-choy-and-tofu-stir-fry/

https://www.justonecookbook.com/?p=275361

nanila

Keiki and his espresso.

Girl and pengie by the harbour.

Kings of Trieste

Low sun on the water.

There was a jellyfish bloom in the harbour. Mostly barrels, but some moon jellies and others.

Wine is a good way to end the day yes yes.

just_ann_now

Our temperature dropped down to 27 degrees overnight, but from what I can see, none of the garden flowers were adversely affected. Supposed to warm up again later in the week! This see-saw weather is getting very old, though.

What I Just Finished Reading

See-sawing here too, trying out books then discarding them. Thank goodness for Libby and Hoopla! In place of the horrible Intermezzo, I picked up Ann Patchett's Tom Lake, which was lovely and soothing and exactly what I needed right then. (For A to Z Authors.) In place of We the People, I read The Frozen People, by Elly Griffiths. This was a time-travel mystery with just excellent characters. There were lots of loose ends left, though, presumably for sequels. (For Keyword: People.) I also read Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz, which was quite ingenious with its mystery-within-a-mystery. (A to Z Titles).

What I Am Currently Reading

Ditching We the People left me needing something for the Goodreads "Trending Books" challenge, so I picked up We Survived the Night, by Julian Brave Noisecat. I was afraid this was going to be a return to the grim, but it hasn't been like that (too much); lots of mythology and Coyote trickster tales woven in to the narrative.

What I Am Reading Next

My hold of The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende came in just this morning; this will be the last book for my Dreamwidth Book Bingo. I remember reading and loving this, oh, thirty-some years ago so it will be interesting to see how it lands on me this time.

Question of the day: Rereading! Well loved books? Books you weren't sure of once but are giving another chance? Books that you remember being affected by at some point in your life and want to check in with again?

Profile

juliet

My Website

January 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Page Summary

winterfirelight in gardening - Spring Has Sprung!
radiantfracture - vital question
thistleingrey - recent not quite reading
james - Reading, Yarning, Ice Cream
kaberett - ... whoops
musesfool - but I sit silent and burning
asakiyume - Jack of Hearts song by smokingboot
sage - What I'm Doing Wednesday
polyrecsdaily_feed - The Future in Five Conversations (Due South)
xkcd_feed - Overton
senmut - Question to the readers and watchers
oliviacirce - ask the moon
oursin - Wednesday saw the return of the heron, catching A FROG
james_davis_nicoll - Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu crosses floor to Liberals
devilc - An interesting tarot spread
wychwood - march booklog
glitteryv in recthething - Community Recs Post!
justonecookbook_feed - Bok Choy and Tofu Stir-Fry (Video)
nanila - Some photos from Day 1 in Trieste
just_ann_now - What Am I Reading Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags