debbiel66

Mississippi!!! 🎉🎉🎉

I was off today, so I made 2 batches of thumbprint cookies (30 each) and listened to Rachel Maddow on Pablo Torre Finds Out, which is pretty much the only way I can listen to a podcast, and I'm sure I missed a lot but what I heard, I enjoyed.

I guess it's reading Wednesday, and earlier this week I recommended Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series to angelgazing, and that made me want to reread it, so I'm in the middle of The Thief right now. I mentioned that The Thief is very YA, but not to let that put her off. I did not, however, give her any spoilers, and ( spoilers ) And if you haven't read it yet, you absolutely should.

I also have been pecking away at To Shape a Dragon's Breath, but mostly on my phone, so I've only been reading it in waiting rooms and such. I'm liking it, but I am so braced for bad things to happen to Anequs and I don't want that, that I kind of don't pick it up otherwise. I need to push past that and lock in, but probably not until after I finish this Queen's Thief reread. *wry*

I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention but I don't...oh wait, I know! If you want to save all your open AO3 tabs, there's a way in Firefox (and I believe other browsers) to bookmark them all at once in their own folder, and then copy all the links in that folder and paste them into a word doc (or a gdoc, or a DW entry, or, in my case, a Libre office doc). On a Mac, you hit command+shift+D and it'll ask you to name the folder (AO3 tabs), and then you have a folder of all the links, which you can right click on and hit "copy" and then "paste" in your document of choice. More detailed instructions are here. I've got them all in their own window right now, but this is a nice backup in case of a crash or forced restart or something.

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Got up and out the door yesterday by 9:30 and made it to Alyssa's by 10:30. Baby Miss L was all revved up and raring to go! She put on the apron I sent ahead of time (in the blue safari pattern) and I handed over some child-sized cookie scoops and a spatula, and then we got started making Toll House cookies. (She kinda lost interest once the first tray was in the oven, but the cookies turned out well. I'd made a tray of brownies on Friday evening, but it wasn't necessary - they were just in case something went very wrong with the cookies.)

We ate dino nuggies and smiley potatoes for lunch (with honey mustard for dipping), which was delicious! Apparently, Baby Miss L occasionally forgets she likes TATOES and has to be reminded.

They have a relatively new cat, Rosie, also known as Cat Cat (Baby Miss L's name for her), and she is way friendlier than any other cat my niece has ever had (Chloe would hiss at you from on high, and Libby once sat over me while I slept on the couch with murder face the whole time; needless to say, I did not sleep well that night), and she surprised me by jumping on my chest while I was trying to drink my coffee and I was like, "WHAT THE HELL?" so she jumped right away (and no coffee was spilled) while Alyssa laughed at me. Luckily, I took enough Zyrtec that it didn't really affect me. Whew.

Then we watched a bunch of Toy Story shorts until it was time to go to my sister's. Baby Miss L stood at the front door, urging us all on, "Come on, guys! Let's go to Mimi and Pop Pop's!" (While she still needed to put her own shoes on. 🤣)

My brother had a short-notice medical appointment (he is having his other hip replaced in a couple of weeks, and I guess his doctor got him in for an earlier pre-surgical assessment than expected) but he made it pretty much on time, and then we sat down to play.

May I* is a beloved game in my family, and we grew up playing it. I have the order of hands ingrained in my brain** though we also had a hand-written list to follow and apparently my sister has the original family May I deck (which is like, 3 decks combined, because with a larger group, you need more cards).

*Our family rules are slightly different but the overall gist is the same.

**(1. 2 sets (10 cards to start); 2. 1 set, 1 sequence; 3. 2 sequences; 4. 3 sets (12 cards from here on out); 5. 2 sets, 1 sequence; 6. 1 set, 2 sequences; 7. 3 sequences no discard)

We played with 2 decks to start the game - one that was open, and one my brother and I watched my sister unseal and open (not because we didn't trust her, which I know sounds facetious but is sincere - but we were just all at the table already when she did it). And as the 2nd hand dragged on with most of us unable to complete our sets or sequences, someone noticed that there were 3 Queens of Diamonds on the table, which should be impossible with only 2 decks! So we trashed that hand and separated out the 2 decks of cards. Since one was regular and one had jumbo numbers (the one that my sister had just opened), it was easy to tell which cards belonged to which deck.

And when all the sorting was through, it turned out that the newly opened deck had 2 Queens of Diamonds and 2 Aces of Clubs, but no 10s or Jacks of Diamonds, and other irregularities that were completely bonkers. It still made up a deck of 52 cards + 2 Jokers, but with some cards not existing and multiples of others, it meant that the game couldn't be played properly with that deck.

Of course, my sister had several other decks of cards, so we broke for pizza and checked out another deck or two so we'd be ready to restart with the second hand after dinner. Which we did.

It was still not easy - 7 people is probably about 2 more than we usually play with, and we probably needed a 3rd deck earlier than we added it - and we were all kind of exhausted at the end of the 6th hand, when my brother realized that mathematically, nobody could catch my niece for the lowest score (how you win), so we decided to skip the last hand, which is historically a marathon (the no-discard thing makes it very difficult, because it means every card you pick up has to slot in somewhere, and the more you May I to get the cards you need, the more cards you have in your hand).

We all had a lot of fun though, so I'm glad we did it, and i hope it's not another 8 years before we do it again. Though maybe next time we should start at 1 pm instead of 3:30. *hands*

I got home by 8:45 pm, poked around the internet for a bit, and then went to bed at 10:30 and slept for 11 hours, which was AMAZING.

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It was easy to be distracted most of the day yesterday, what with the dentist and all. I voted by mail, so once my ballot was "received and validated!" I didn't really have anything left to do. I avoided the news all day by napping and feeling bleh, and didn't want to get my hopes up, but I ended up putting on MSNBC MSNow or whatever they're calling themselves these days because I need Rachel Maddow on election night and boy howdy what a night it was.

angelgazing and I were texting all night, like, North Carolina! SOUTH CAROLINA?! Georgia yay! OHIO!!! MAINE, FINALLY! ...KANSAS?!?! TEXAS!!!!! I went to bed after Talarico's speech, and woke up to potentially Alaska!? and possibly MISSISSIPPI!??! Holy cats, y'all!

Also, closer to home, all Mamdani's ballot propositions passed easily, Hochul won commandingly, and Mike Lawler is gone.

I must say, Jon Ossoff looked quite presidential, as did James Talarico (though he needs to stay where he is for a while, imo), and there's always the AOC possibility, and Buttigieg, as well (though that beard is heinous). Dems have a pretty good field to choose from for 2028, so let's hope they don't fuck it up.

Also, we need to pressure Jeffries to put bipartisanship on a shelf for a few years (and Schumer to be removed from leadership altogether). The Repugs just got waxed - let them stay in the doghouse for a bit while Dems get some shit done. Of course, we have to get to January, first, without the current regime fucking things up more. 🤞🤞🤞

Some links:

- "Lawyer up!" #let's fucking go!!!

- a reblog of a 2018 post with info updated from last night about what it took to get here.

- and of course, the utterly batshit Star Wars memes that the GOP somehow thought were going to move the needle??? I mean, I love Anakin Skywalker more than most people, but I understand that he was A REALLY BAD GUY WHO MURDERED CHILDREN (among other terrible things) mostly through his own terrible choices (and 12 years of being groomed by the most evil guy in the galaxy) and not someone to emulate. I honestly don't think those folks have any reading comprehension skills whatsoever - they do not understand Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings or basically anything and apparently always root for the clear and obvious bad guys, but also somehow think that everyone else thinks that way too? It's just bonkers to me.

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I finally watched the Avatar Aang movie and I enjoyed it for the most part - the animation was lovely - but ( are these even spoilers? )

And since I was on a roll, I also watched the first season of Avatar: Seven Havens, and enjoyed it. ( spoilers )

So I am definitely looking forward to season 2, whenever it emerges.

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I've decided that I'm going to put the October recs together but not post them until AO3 is back - there's no reason to do it now if people can't click on the links.

I ended up opening a new browser window and opening all my usual (non-AO3) tabs in it and leaving all the fic tabs open in a window by themselves. Hopefully nothing happens to them and they just hang out until AO3 is back.

In the odd event that someone is looking for something to read in a fandom I've written in, most of my fic from 2009 - 2023 is here in my DW, tagged by fandom and pairing or character. Pre-2009 stuff may or may not have been ported over back in the day, but I'm glad now that I never stopped cross-posting here.

In other news, I did get allspice on sale with my Stop and Shop order this morning, and then my original Penzey's box showed up...WITH ALLSPICE INCLUDED. So now I am well stocked on it for a very long time. I'm not sure why it wasn't included in the replacement box, but it's all good now.

Speaking of allspice, I use it in the oatmeal cookies I like, and I just discovered that that recipe has been memory-holed on the KAB website and when I click the link for it, there's some other oatmeal cookie there instead! And you might think, "well, how can she tell? aren't oatmeal cookie recipes all pretty similar?" but the one I like has boiled cider and rum in it! (nb: I never use the rum but I remember it's on the ingredients list.) And the one now living at the link does not! But the one I like is still available in the wayback machine here: tender cranberry raisin oatmeal cookies. I also saved it as a PDF (and of course, I handwrote it in my notebook the first time I baked it) so I will have it available when I want it, regardless of what King Arthur does.

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