playswithworms

Randome thoughte

playswithworms — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 05:13:40 GMT

Not sure why I remembered this today, but all through elementary school I had a Sesame Street alarm clock that would wake me up in the morning, and to this day I can remember the exact words and cadence:

Good morning!
It's me,
your friend,
Big Bird!
The old school house clock says it's time to get up!
Now wash your face,
brush your teeth,
and don't forget!
To wind the clock!

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/202270.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Happy Valentine's!

playswithworms — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 05:22:29 GMT

Happy Valentine's Day all my loves! <3333333333333333333333333333

Enjoy some noise from our favorite pink Autobot!

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/202011.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Three things make a post!

playswithworms — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 05:08:10 GMT

1. Today's traffic jam podcast: David Tennant (10th Doctor) interviewing Jodie Whittaker (13th Doctor) - so much fun! I could listen to them all day. The accents! Just give me delight, although I listened to it again on the way home because I couldn't quite catch everything the first time through. Here's the YouTube link - no video, just the audio, and if you do podcasts just look up the latest episode of "David Tennant Does a Podcast With..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLu06tlLIyk

So far I've made it through most of Matt Smith (11th Doctor) and as I suspected, it just took me a few more episodes to like him very much! All the convoluting plots and River Song, very fun, too.

2. In other news, discovered last week at a vet visit that our educational groundhog, that I've been calling "she" for three years, is actually a boy! Field guides don't go into that much detail on sexing groundhogs XD

3. Had to start over on my "Couch to 5K" exercise project - took a few weeks off due to a bad cold, and then polar vortex temps, and even though I scaled it back to shorter run segments when I started back up again, my knees started hurting almost right off the bat. And I kept going thinking "maybe they'll loosen up" - they did not loosen up! Knees were very unhappy afterwards, so gave it all a rest and thought I'd try glucosamine supplements. Seems to be helping! It might be psychological, but I do feel very springy, and knees are mostly fine now - one has a bit of soreness once in awhile, but I've started over back at the very beginning with the running app, with the little 1 minute runs, and it doesn't seem to be making it worse. I do like my little running park - I get to hear water gurgling in the icy creek, and there's a kingfisher that rattles every time I go by, and there's fun sand patterns and raccoon tracks on the trail.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/201868.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Oh raccoon

playswithworms — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 05:05:14 GMT

I think the picture says it all, lol

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/200664.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

I guess I have to go buy more pet beds...

playswithworms — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 04:09:42 GMT

This is my critter laundry for the education animals at work, and the squishy bed on top actually belongs to the opossum, but All Squish Belongs To Toast!

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/199456.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

All the things I'm not writing

playswithworms — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 07:10:58 GMT

Protectobot fic/snippet bunnies! My writer-brain still seems to be stalled out after this crazy year, but it does at least have a whole nest of bunnies to poke at if it ever decides to rev up :D

Protectobot Beginningsverse:

Blades has a rough day, side effect from when the P-bots got injured shortly after coming to Cybertron, and gets brother snuggles and well-disguised Slingshot concern and maybe an oil bath.

First Aid and the crew of the Ark land on Earth shortly after events of first Bayverse movie, and Aid immediately pounces on Bumblebee to repair his legs. Ratchet drags Optimus to Ark medbay to remove Jazz's spark (which Optimus has been keeping alive in his chest after Jazz got ripped in half by Megatron) and put Jazz back in his own frame now that Ratchet has access to the Ark medbay.

Big Bumblebee meets Little Bee and finds out who is parent(s) is/are.

Wheeljack, Jazz, and Aerialbots go back to Cybertron to find Aid's long-lost-and-presumed-dead brothers, hear them singing in the ruins.

First Aid has some ptsd type nightmares after being reunited with his brothers, frustrated but getting excellent brother-cuddles.

Protectobots form Defensor for the first time after being reunited; Superion has a happy (in his own way).

Sideswipe watches Sunstreaker paint the medbay ceiling of the Ark, as a nice thing for First Aid, not that Sunny's exactly saying so ;)

Roller gets strong enough to get his first antivirals, which makes him sleepy. Cuddles are required.

Project Resetverse

Chapter 2 of Astrogenesis - Optimus snuggles Aid after his round of short outs, and tells P-bots the story of how they were made.

Reincarnated!Jazz hatchling stealth-hatches and causes some concern when they find his empty pod.

Librariobot hatchlings go through their first molt and Quig has a sad because he thinks they're dying.

Optimus watches Clover and his reincarnated hatchlings while First Aid and the Protectobots are on Cybertron (which would make this a fanfic of Tainry's fanfic of my fanfic! XD )

The hatchlings call Perceptor "Sir Peptor" and get to look through his scope at cool stuff

All-by-himself Barricade feeds the hatchlings for the first time by slicing his own energon lines.

Happy Prime
Happy's first few weeks of development after she gets removed from Optimus and put in her frame. Lots of fascinated doting Autobots, since she's the first newspark in forever.

Residue
Weird little AU bunny - First Aid starts out as a cleaning droid that Wheeljack finds and sends to Ratchet after his last medbay assistant takes a new job.

Magic Schoolbus crossover
First Aid and Protectobots find a damaged yellow school bus and repair, Ms Frizzle gives a lesson on Giant Alien Robots!

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/198995.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Three things make a post!

playswithworms — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 18:10:43 GMT

1. I have made a Pillowforte. fort. thing. Haven't done much yet since it's running super slow due to being a little overwhelmed and still a baby site, but it is there and I've found a few folks and added them, and I know there've been a few others on there that scrolled past on tumblr that I lost track of - feel free to look me up if you're on there - playswithworms is the name, I have no game, or something. (Also, if you have changed names on tumblr several times I may or may not have any idea who you are, lol - I still think of everyone as their original LJ handles for the most part).

2. Have been home with a cold for a few days and binge watched "The Dragon Prince" on Netflix, super cute! Things I like:
More than one female character! It's...not quite 50:50, maybe, but I believe it's approaching it quite closely!
A plotline I mostly follow!
A kickass awesome character who is deaf and they use sign language and have an interpreter, and it's not heavy-handed (ha! I meant to do that) or overdone, just part of the story.
All the characters are fun and interesting and quirky and I like getting to know them
Everyone, including kings, baby-talks to their animal companions
Affectionate step-family and sibling relationships
Season 1 doesn't resolve all the threads (Season 2 is in the works), but ends on a satisfying note.

3. I have been running! Sort of, anyway. This is in an attempt to avoid having to take blood pressure medication, which doesn't seem to agree with me very well. My job keeps me pretty active, except for this time of year, but it's not usually aerobic-type activity, just a lot of continuous walking around. I downloaded one of those "Couch to 5K" apps that steps you up with gradually increasing bits of jogging vs walking and (until I came down with cold) have been heading out to a tiny local park to run(ish). The trail is soft enough it hasn't bothered my knees or feet so far, and I get to check out trees and plants and a nice burbly stream and occasional wildlife, so it's fairly easy to convince myself to do it. The only thing is it does have a huge stand of around 20 or so mature dead ash trees, wiped out by the emerald ash borer the last few years, so that adds an extra spice of danger! Yeesh. I don't go if there are high winds. So far I've made it to three-minute continuous runs, and it's fun to feel like I've developed a wee bit of stamina. The boobs are a bit of a pain - I have a jogging bra that isn't too bad if I put it on over my shirt and the whole kaboodle, instead of wearing it right next to my skin, but this time of year my coat works just as well to keep everything from flopping about too much. I'm a little self-conscious because I don't have any "jogging" clothes, and the park is right behind a big fitness center and there I am jogging around in my khaki work pants and hiking boots, lol, but usually there's no one else on the trail.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/198527.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Bunny adventures

playswithworms — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 05:32:39 GMT

I don’t always stab myself in the palm with scissors, but when I do I like to do it with the scissors I’ve been using to trim poop-balls from a bunny’s butt. *Someone* decided to try to escape the blanket she was rolled up in at just the wrong time. She still needs a bunch of loose hair brushed out of her back, but it had to wait while I took a break to not bleed over everything.

It’s actually a pretty tiny puncture, despite the bleeding - and the bleeding hopefully washed out any bunny poo. Bunnicula the bunny has been giving me the stink eye all day, but at least she doesn’t have poop balls dangling from her butt fuzz any more! Tomorrow she gets a brushing, which at least doesn’t involve any sharp edges.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/198325.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Kitty updates

playswithworms — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 21:06:55 GMT

Took the lads in for vaccinations and check ups yesterday - had been trying to get Mr-Food-Vacuum-Gandalf’s weight down a bit since he’s been having more trouble jumping up on things, so started putting the dry kibble in ice cube trays to slow him down a bit. And it worked! Gandalf is down half a pound. Toast however has dropped a full pound that he really didn’t need to drop, hrm. The first day I tried the ice cube tray thing he scooped the food out with his paw right away, but then he seemed like he just totally forgot how to do it and now he just sticks his nose into the cube tray and gets the top bits and gives up on the rest. So, may have to figure out something else, scheduled mealtimes in three different rooms or something.

Miss Bones will get her check up in spring, but as far as I can tell by manual squooshes (when she’ll let me, which is only when I’m talking on the phone which = cuddle time for some reason) she’s maintaining her weight - she only comes out to eat after I’ve gone to bed and everything’s quiet, which presents its own challenge.

"What is this new devilry?"

In other news, I just deleted three porn blogs that started following me on tumblr since yesterday - penises, vulvas, dildos, strap ons, blow jobs, gifs of real people and cartoon people having sex, the works! So the "no adult content" algorithm whatsis is doing a bang up job there, lol.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/197891.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Gadgets!

playswithworms — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 06:31:36 GMT

In the last few days I've had Actual Days Off In A Row and gotten to use some nifty new thingamabobs - it feels like a lot, but I guess it's really only two and one I haven't tried out yet, lol - still, I've been having fun!

1. Leaf blower-mulcher which I got last spring when they were on sale, but haven't had a chance to use it until yesterday - it was still in the box in the garage! I don't really need the blower, but I wanted to be able to mulch the copious dead leaves I get from my neighbor's three ginormous beautiful oak trees and put them on my woodland wildflower planting in the back (whole leaves tend to just blow around, and can smother teeny seedlings, so mulched is supposed to be better). It works great! Sucked up all the leaves along the edge of the driveway and chopped and funneled them into a backpack tube, which I could then detach and dump. Got three loads, and will hopefully be able to get the leaves from neighbors when the rake them up (there's a bit of a language barrier, and they think I'm a little nuts to WANT their dead leaves, but that's how I started my wildflower garden originally is by dumping the 10 or so big bags of leaves I mooched off of them a couple of years ago).

2. Wi-fi extender - actually haven't used this one yet. Mom and I share a phone data plan and mom has been very worried about overshooting our data because the wifi doesn't reach back to her bedroom, so her phone keeps switching to data. Going to see if I can stair-step it back there for her - it's a minimal charge if we do overshoot, and more likely to be due to me doing work stuff on my phone, but she does worry lol.

3. Vitamix blender - this is apparently like the fancy sports car of blenders - I've been using a little tiny Nutri-bullet to mix up wildlife smoothies to sneak in veggies to my opossums and raccoons that don't like veggies (and even, on occasion, food for me!), and it takes forever to mix and freeze a big batch that will last awhile and makes a big mess trying to keep the little blender cup from dripping all over the place with each blend cycle. I have a bigger blender that I've had forever, but it leaves chunks and clogs all the time. I found a refurbished + on sale one for around $180, which yikes, but normally even refurbished these puppies are $300 or more, and...I nabbed it! Tried it out today to mix up opossum smoothies for the week, and whoo hoo! At top speed it sounds like a jet engine taking off - it's a little scary lol, but it doesn't clog! And no chunky bits of veggie that the opossums will just spit out! And it took me maybe 20 minutes instead of an hour! So...money well spent, I think. And I still have the Nutri-bullet for mixing up frozen mealworms and crickets and any other weird stuff.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/197458.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Happy Halloween!

playswithworms — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 05:46:13 GMT

Or day-after-Halloween, more accurately. Trick-or-treating got off to a busy start, as I had kids already waiting for me on the porch when I got home from work - luckily I had the candy ready to go that I'd put in the bowl in the morning before I left because I knew I was going to get home late. Rain started about half an hour in, though, so I only ended up with around 20 kids instead of the more usual 40-60, which means I have LOTS of candy left. Less than there was this morning though because I had chocolate for breakfast and also for lunch, lol (vegetables for dinner though because even I can eat too much chocolate). Funny thing I noticed this year, very few of the kids said "trick or treat" when I opened the door - mostly they just stood there. I'd end up saying "trick or treat" instead, and then I had to urge them to actually take the candy, and then to take more than one piece - not sure if I just had a run of very shy kids this year or what, usually I get a bunch of the "grab all the candy you can with both hands" types :P

In other news, I picked up a new friend - a pink-toe tarantula! She's very adorable, with her little tippy toes. I had a rose-hair tarantula for several years that finally died this spring, and I needed a new one for my fall spider programs at the park. Pink toes are tree-climbing spiders instead of ground dwellers like the rosehairs, still very unlikely to bite, but they are much faster and skittery and inclined to jump right off your hand! A rosehair is a better choice for a program spider, but they can't sell them in pet stores anymore apparently, and the rescues didn't have any either. A spider that might jump and go skittering around is exactly the opposite of what you want to get people over their fears of spiders, lol, but she actually did very well at her first program yesterday (I sat on the ground while holding her, just in case - a long fall could hurt or even kill her), and none of the participants in my spider program had spider phobias so they were all pretty calm and interested. I need to think of a nice, non-threatening name (previous tarantula was Barbie, because of her barbed urticating hairs) - Princess Tippy Toes or Snookums or something. I'll try to put some pictures on tumblr - just moved her from her temporary carrier into her new permanent house so I don't want to disturb her again tonight though.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/197326.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

scribble!

playswithworms — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 01:46:11 GMT

Linking to tumblr because posting images on DW is a pain - raccoon girl got into some of my old papers and notes from when I was writing Project Reset and found this little scribble I did in the margins of little extra-small hatchling Jazz, still in his pod:

Wee hatchling Jazz

I've got TF: Revenge of the Fallen (or is it Return of the Fallen? I always get that mixed up) playing while I clean house and laundry, and the bits that are all "the president wants you guys to leave, or else" that were kind of weird and out-of-character when Obama was president (because maybe he'd have legit issues with giant alien robots setting up shop but you'd expect him to be diplomatic about it, and also I could imagine him and Optimus having some really nice talks), but now...now the president being a jerk parts ring a lot more true! So, the one good thing to come from this administration - adding some veritas to Bayverse TF rewatches.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/196881.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Hullo!

playswithworms — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 04:55:26 GMT

Finally gave in a couple of days ago and turned on the heat when nighttime temps started dipping into the upper 40's, and now tonight I just turned on the air conditioning again because the house it still all hot and stuffy from the 80's today.

In other exciting news, I gave the bathroom a good deep scrubbing on Saturday and moved the stacks of baby bottles and feeding tubes and formula back into the spare bedroom/wildlife room - it's so nice to have one room in the house all clean and organized! Now I just need a couple weeks off to get the rest of the house tackled, lol. And the yard. And the garage. I still have half a pile of mulch from this spring sitting in the driveway that I didn't get finished moving before baby season hit - I've been trying to move at least a wheelbarrow a night, but with road construction going on right now (they shut down a whole section of interstate) my daily commute is taking closer to two hours than one - doesn't leave much time after ingesting foods and taking care of the wildlifes. Hopefully I can get some of these kiddos released soon - the raccoon babies are absolutely trashing their pen every night, they need MORE ROOM, like a whole forest!

Ended up on emergency (human) baby sitting duty on Sunday morning - niecelet was running a fever and mom was watching her, but had a church thing she had to go to. Poor kiddo, she's a little cranky pants when she's sick - everything was the End of the World, including but not limited to: taking her temperature, taking medicine (mom finally mixed it with melted popsicle and snuck it in that way), assisting her with taking her sock off, giving her a paper towel so her popsicle didn't drip, being dripped on by the popsicle because she wouldn't take the towel, and her aunt going to the bathroom in the WRONG bathroom (she wanted me to use the big bathroom, not the little one). That was Saturday night - luckily by Sunday morning when I was on duty the medicine had kicked in and she was her normal silly funny self, some occasional stubbornness, but not sobbing-on-the-floor meltdowns every few minutes. We even played for awhile with the thermometer and took each other's temperatures (it was an armpit thermometer - the night before she wouldn't even let us touch her with it, let alone stick it in her armpit, and the under-the-tongue one was right out. I think I'm going to invest in one of those remote thermometers for mom that scans from a distance, where you don't even have to touch them, pricey but it might be worth it!)

I did manage to find enough time to catch up on a few things on my watch list on Netflix (and hide from the news): Wrinkle in Time (fun characters! Didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would though) Golden Compass (enjoyed this one more than I thought I would, although I fell asleep for the last part, so not sure what the recommendation is there, lol), and Lost in Space reboot (also very fun, although I found some parts hard to watch - fake psychologist lady freaked me out! I suspect it's just a me thing for that though).

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/196391.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

47!

playswithworms — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 04:50:20 GMT

I had to do the math to figure out how old I was this year, lol - 46 and 47 are numbers that just don't really stick in the head. Co-workers brought delicious cinnamon buns to work on Wednesday, and had cake with mom & niecelet on Friday. This morning I did my annual Goodwill run to restock my wardrobe - all my pants have developed the usual rip in the right knee and pretty much every shirt has stains on the "boob shelf" where I drop all my food - managed to find 5 or so pairs of pants and three shirts, so score! All the shirts are from the men's section, so they kind of make me look like a box, but at least they're not see-through. Also got a decent cat tree for $15 - with raccoons in the house you can never have too many things to climb!

Getting the remnants of Gordon, so lots of rain today, which we needed badly! although I don't think we're going to get the 5 inches they were talking about, at least where I am. The rain gauge was at just under 3" tonight, and the radar looks like it's mostly cleared out.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/196102.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Look, it's my brain!

playswithworms — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 04:34:53 GMT

Teeny bits of it, anyway - finally feel like I'm starting to get some sanity back, as daycamps are done and I've had a few no-program days at work to get my ducks in a row. Or possums. Or something. Wildlife season hasn't slowed down one jot - still bottle feeding three late-season baby raccoons twice a day, and got in 12 teeny opossum orphans that need tube-feeding three times a day. The raccoons are nibbling on bananas and hard-boiled eggs tonight, and the opossum babies opened their eyes yesterday, so they should get the hang of lapping from a dish probably in the next week - light at the end of the tunnel!

We had major wind gusts in a storm earlier in the week, and my power went out about 2am, which means my baby wildlife incubator stopped incubating, and I had no way to warm up formula to feed anyone in the morning. Spent the rest of the night with 12 baby opossums bundled in a pillowcase under my shirt to keep them warm - it was a very squirmy night! Mot much sleeping, lol. Packed them and the three raccoons in the car first thing in the morning, along with their formula in coolers to keep it warm, and drove everyone to the nature center - was able to get the opossums fed before first program of the day, but raccoon babies were old enough that they were too freaked out by the new environment to eat anyway, so they got their breakfast later in the afternoon. Happily the power was back on by the time I got home - threw away a few things in the fridge, since I had to open it in the morning to get the formula out, but it was mostly vegetables for critters rather than human food, so not much lost. Normally losing power isn't a super big deal for me, but with teeny wildlife babies it's a logistical nightmare - really considering getting a generator, although I don't think I'd want to leave it running unattended so would probably end up carting babies to work with me anyway.

Had my usual Saturday night hangout time with niecelet and mom - niecelet is attending preschool a couple days a week and learning to write out her name. I wrote her name and my name and my mom's name and her dad's name in chalk on the back porch, and oh, the complete and utter earth-shattering joy and delight when she discovered that some of our names had THE SAME LETTERS! Hee ^_^

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/195894.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Behold, I have prepared foods!

playswithworms — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 01:40:49 GMT

That 'minor' cold from way back when progressed to a sinus infection that knocked me flat for a couple weeks - I had all kinds of programs and volunteer trainings at work, so I dosed up on cold medicine enough to stay functional, but didn't have much energy left over for anything else, and the house was really showing it! Finally started feeling human again this week - my head doesn't feel like a bowling ball, which is lovely :) And have had three days off in a row, whoo hoo!

House is now back to minimal standards of civilization, and I was in a cooking mood today now that the kitchen is clean(ish) - I've been resorting to fast food and mac-n-cheese way too much lately. Made a veggie omelet for breakfast, some pear-oatmeal bars to take as snacks to work next week (smelled lovely while cooking, but not particularly tasty - maybe they'll grow on me), rolled up a bunch of mini bean burritos and put them in the freezer to take for lunches, sliced some potatoes and baked with soup mix seasoning and mozzarella cheese and gobbled them up for dinner tonight, they turned out quite tasty. On the wildlife food prep, mixed up a big batch of "raccoon glorp" - peas, carrots, bananas, nuts and seeds, blueberries, yogurt, etc. and froze it into baby food jars - keeps raccoon girl occupied for awhile eating them.

In other news, someone brought in a big brown bat last week with a broken wing bone - I have another one I'm hibernating and will release in the spring, but this one I'm not sure will be releasable. Dropped her off at the vet this morning but they didn't get a chance to look at her today, will find out the verdict tomorrow if they can do surgery on the wing (it's one of the hair thin "finger" bones, but the ends are sticking out from the wing and it's been that way for awhile) and if there's any hope of regaining full flight. I'm pretty doubtful, so have been brushing up on my long-term captive bat care since odds are good she'll have to stay as a non-releasable education bat. She's an older lady, her teeth are worn instead of pointy-sharp like on my hibernating bat, but she's super feisty and is starting to get the hang of eating mealworms from tweezers.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/194617.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Feesh!

playswithworms — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:22:26 GMT

Since posting photos on DW is kinda tedious, but on tumblr I can just stick 'em directly from my phone:
Color changing betta Legolas-the-fish

I also got two new bettas, since my little Bluestreak betta died several weeks ago, after a good run of 4 or 5 years, and I had an empty tank: Two new feesh

My little zinnias are sprouting, yay!

Caught a cold, after dodging the germs all year, so not so yay *snorfles and snuffs* My voice survived the 100 first graders and two hours of showing them pond bugs this morning (and they all went out and scooped - had to break through the ice on the pond to do it, lol, and we only caught algae and muck for the most part, but I was impressed - they all did it and they all had an awesome time!), but I am now left with nothing but a a piteous raspy whisper. Happily tomorrow I can just snuggle in and not do much, maybe my taxes if I get ambitious.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/194502.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Laundry day! (maybe tomorrow)

playswithworms — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 02:39:04 GMT

Finally got dryer repaired this afternoon, so I can catch up on the big backlog of critter laundry. I've been doing my human laundry and just hanging up around the house to dry, which works fine, but would be pretty tedious to do with all the critter towels and blankets.

Also got a dental filling replaced this morning - all of my fillings are from at least 25 years ago, and apparently after awhile they start to need replacing. This wasn't bad at all, except I've got a cold sore in the corner of my mouth and it was not happy with me holding my mouth open and now it's really sore! So, I'm considerably poorer, and my mouth is a little bit cranky, but all in all a productive day (I have not, yet, accomplished any laundry, being a little worn out from several longs days at work this week, but instead have spent the evening snugged on the couch watching a PBS documentary on The History of China, which caught my fancy and was fascinating! I knew there were huge gaps in my grokking of Chinese history and I was right.)

While I was waiting for the repair person (who turned out to be a Very Tall Person, and I had to warn him to duck under my low hanging light fixtures and the low ceiling going down the staircase and other hazards of my Very Short Person house, lol) managed to get some zinnias and Mexican sunflower seeds started for spring, now percolating in their dirts on my hopefully out-of-reach-from-raccoon table by the window, and also planted some shooting star and cardinal flower seeds in milk jugs and put them outside - they're native wildflowers so they need the cold temps first before they'll decide to sprout. I put my big poofy winter coat away too soon! After two weeks of warm February, we're back in the lower 20's F for March - I was way under dressed today in my lesser winter coat, brrrrrr

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/194294.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Hey, I wrote a thing!

playswithworms — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 02:29:53 GMT

A new thing, not just a repost even!

Happy Prime Chapter 4

In other news, all my wildlife permits and reports are due next week - every year I plan to get them done early and every year I'm right down to the wire - I just need about 8 uninterrupted hours, but work has been one thing after another. Thinking I might sneak in and hide in the office on Saturday and try to get them hammered out, because I have a feeling next week is not going to cooperate on the uninterrupted front.

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/193480.html. Please comment wherever you wish.

Shiver me timbers

playswithworms — Wed, 27 Dec 2017 02:34:25 GMT

It's cold out there! After an unseasonably warm fall and start to winter, it's a bit of a shock to the system, but I'm starting to get adjusted I think - got around an inch of snow just in time for Christmas, and now temps are in the low teens. Next weekend it's supposed to be even colder, -2 New Year's morning, which of course I volunteered to open the park up at 7am since the maintenance staff will be off for the holiday - whoosh! Better remember to pack my little butane firestarter thing in the car, 'cause you bet those padlocks are going to be frozen solid.

Had a quiet Christmas - went over to brother's for breakfast and cinnamon rolls and opened presents with niecelet. I got her a "Yeti in my spaghetti" game - there's a little plastic monster and you put strands of plastic spaghetti over a red bowl and lay it on top, and try to move spaghetti one strand at a time without letting the Yeti fall into the bowl. We played it a few times, and then the game part was abandoned in favor of pretend play with the Yeti eating the spaghetti and all the Paw Patrol pups also playing in the bowl with the spaghetti and using the cute little kid-microscope mom got her as a mountaintop staging area, lol - oh well, it was all definitely played with!

Poor brother was coming down with full blown flu yesterday though, looked pretty rough and barely lasted through presents :( And sis-in-law hasn't been feeling too well either - mom's had niecelet all day to try to let them rest. Mom and I both had our flu shots, and niecelet's had some epic sniffles the last week but seems to be ok otherwise so far. I've had a mild cold for the past week, but nothing too gruesome. Fingers crossed!

I got a Roku streaming player since my Chromecast widget has been giving up the ghost - set it up today and it was so nice to watch a Netflix without everything freezing every ten minutes :)

Brought in some snow for raccoon-girl and she had a good time pawing around in it, picking up hunks of snow and putting them in her water pan where they didn't last long XD All the kitties wanted to check out the snow, too, but raccoon kept chasing them away - I finally got them their own little dishes and put them up on the table (where they sniffed it and then decided it was boring).

I've been cross-posting some of my older Protectobot snippets to ao3 - something I'd started to do, but got side-tracked at some point. (Older as in from 2012, whoa! O_O) It's been fun going back and re-reading some of those - it's been long enough I've forgotten a lot of them!

What's everyone else been up to?

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It works! But my brain said nope

playswithworms — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 00:51:44 GMT

Mom got such a kick out of a Virtual Reality viewer we saw at an event that I was thinking of maybe getting her one for Christmas, since they've dropped in price quite a bit - ended up getting her a ladder she wanted instead, but decided to go to Best Buy and check them out anyway, and they had cardboard ones for only $10:

Insignia Virtual Reality Viewer

Looks like the Insignia ones are a knock off of the original Google Cardboard, which is still only $15. Wasn't sure how well it would work, but the reviews were good, and it is compatible with smartphones with screens 4"-6" which is what I have (iphone 6). You have to download the Google Cardboard app on to your phone, and then scan the QR code on the viewers to sync them up, and then it gives you an image of an arctic fox that gradually gets clearer and focused as it...does the syncing somehow? The app has some simple starter things to do - there's a target dot that you see in the view and a button on the viewer (made of cardboard!?) that you use to navigate, and you can go flying as a gull over an icy seascape, or press the button and "plant" fun flowers all over the landscape, or check out a 360 degree museum scene of dinosaur fossils, etc. -

Then I downloaded a couple other VR apps, including a roller coaster and forked over a dollar for a space one, but when I tried out the roller coaster it worked a little too well! I don't usually get motion sick, but whoo boy. I felt fine, laughing and enjoying it, until it ended, and then had to lay down for awhile, lol - felt queasy and my ears were ringing, and my head felt weird for about 4 hours, just now getting back to normal. I really want to try out the space one - the flying scene and other poking around VRs didn't seem to bother me, but probably shouldn't chance it until tomorrow @_@ There's also a "Google Cardboard Camera" app that lets you take 360 degree photos, and then you can view them in VR - haven't tried that yet either, but looks like it has some fun potential - just thinking of how you could share nature landscapes and vacation spots for people who aren't able to go there themselves for whatever reason.

Anyway, they work! I don't have much to compare them with as far as fancier versions (the others I saw at Best Buy were still $50+) - with these you have to hold them to your eyes, no head strap, and there was a bit of gap where the cardboard didn't fit perfectly to my face, but I could keep my glasses on and the roller coaster was definitely immersive! For $10 (and of course the cost of a reasonably recent smartphone of the right size able to download the VR apps) it was a pretty good way to dip a toe in the VR world without a big investment.

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Jury duty

playswithworms — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 01:57:32 GMT

Had to call in this week each day, and yesterday my group number was called in, so got to make the drive downtown in the wee hours and find parking and navigate the city-county building (I've been there several times before for work, but it's always a bit of a stressful adventure!)

And then I ended up getting chosen for a jury: domestic violence case.
AND I end up getting assigned to sit in the very front right seat, right in front of the witness stand and directly across from the defendant, this man accused of domestic violence. I was...a little stressed by all this, to say the least. I hate courts and courtroom drama and lawyer stuff, I don't even like to watch it on tv, and then the charges were...appalling, attempted strangulation of a pregnant woman, criminal confinement, smashing a window with a pole. I've been on a jury before, for a murder case, but that was street gang related and scary but...this felt just so much more personal and threatening. I was getting a little panicky and teary, right after getting chosen, and I almost considered letting the judge know that, hey, I'm willing to do my duty but I don't seem to be handling this well right now, you might have one of your jurors sobbing all through the trial, just fyi. I ended up not saying anything because I felt like I had seen and learned enough about domestic violence that I really needed to be there. In part where they question potential jurors I told them about my experience a few years ago with the neighbor who was yelling and threatening his girlfriend, and letting her into my house for shelter, which I thought might disqualify me, but I was the very first one on the list for both sides (yay?)

But! The whole thing ended up not being nearly so awful as I thought it would be, although I was a bundle of stress and anxiety the whole time. The rest of the jury members were all nice, sensible folks - one other lady had admitted to being a little rattled by the whole domestic violence thing, so she sat next to me during breaks and deliberations and we checked in with one another quite a bit. We broke for lunch before the trial and I felt a lot more composed once I'd had a bit to absorb the whole "ack I have to sit through a court trial and people arguing and doing courtroom things" and "ye gods, I've got a violent dude who tried to strangle his pregnant girlfriend sitting right across from me and staring at me and I'm going to have to hear all about it in detail."

We ended up finding the gentleman not guilty of all charges, after less than an hour of deliberation. Not at all what I had expected going in! They'd know one another for only a few months, hooked up with a dating app. There were some serious inconsistencies and gaps in her story, the evidence just wasn't really there (the evidence collecting by police left a lot to be desired, but even the little we had didn't support her story) - there was some weirdness to his story too, but more to do with the failure of the police to even...get his side of the story? It looked bad for him, really bad at first - but adding everything up, it was pretty clear we didn't have enough evidence to find him guilty by law, and I felt very solid about the verdict. I can't say 100% he didn't do it, or that there wasn't some sort of physical violence, but I think it was pretty unlikely, and definitely not to the murderous and scary degree that was portrayed, and his alternate version of events was extremely plausible and the meager evidence seemed to support it more than not. We found out after the trial that she'd been serving a 12 year sentence for forgery (which yikes, that's quite a sentence, and she was only 19, and I really wondered about the fairness of that sentence, and what extremes had led her to that at such a young age), and had run away while on house arrest and had had a warrant out for her while all this had happened. The judge came back and talked to us later and said she "loved this jury" and I got the impression she also was pretty firmly convinced that the woman's story wasn't true, although she was super impartial during the trial.

I am both reassured and also uneasy about our criminal justice system - I think it worked well for this case, but I can also see how it could go very wrong. You'd need a lot of solid and convincing evidence to ever find someone guilty of domestic violence, according to the rules we had to go by, so I can see why the perpetrators so often walk.

So! Glad I was there. Glad it is over. I worry about them both - the gentleman lost his job after he was arrested, we never found out if the baby was born or if she ever was really pregnant or what happened there. I was able to take today off from work to do all the day off stuff I had been planning to do yesterday and recover a bit - woke up with a headache and still feel like my stomach is unknotting, but finally starting to chillax and get my brain back to other things (I've been watching documentaries about "when tuberculosis used to kill everyone" and "giant supervolcanoes that might wipe us all out any day now" which I always find comforting for some reason, lol).

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Chinese translation!

playswithworms — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 02:25:42 GMT

Dinofelis on Ao3 asked a few weeks ago if they could translate "Impressionable" into Chinese, and they posted it today! Impressionable translated into Chinese Hee!

Just for fun, I hit "translate page" in the Chrome browser - as expected with auto translation (not to mention a translation of a translation), a bit mangled, but the overall gist is understandable, and it came up with delightful sentences like "How can the great leader repair this riddled world?" The Protectbots become the "Machine Guards", Ironhide is "Tin", Wheeljack and Hoist are "jack" and "trolley", Sentinel Prime is "Royal Predator" or "Imperial Enemy" and Starscream is "underaged spider" XD

Dinofelis

Summary:

Optimus Prime Loves Machine Guards Like Dads, Young Fighters Love Their Leaders
Never Forgotten Optimus:
The virtues of love, freedom, kindness and forgiveness leaders will be inherited by the next generation Never stop until forever
Notes:

A translation of Impressionable by playswithworms .
Work Text:

"He has been strong enough to stay online ... As we found them, the hot spot was always guarding them with both arms, and his companions, I suppose, were the reasons to keep him alive, He was long dead by the amount of energy leaked out of. "
Jack was the most serious one, and he had leaked the whole body of fluid quickly and had formed a small pond under him. But no matter what, they are warmly under the protection of the body. Oh, and one leg of the trolley, and the rest of it did not know where it was buried during the blast. The hot spot still remembers the explosion, the energy flowing out of the wound drags the wetness of the fingers, but he stays in position until the other TFs find them. The companion on the scene later recalled that they saw Wisehelm, Snugglebits and Tangent tightly together as if to do so to disperse the disturbing darkness around them all around their remaining brother, Bridger, Sparkles , Cookie, Caliber, Isotope, Zap. The death of the cold came to them, gradually dim the fire, the body bleached into miserable white, leaving only the body to prove that they have existed in the world.
"I swear! I'm going to throw the underaged spider into the melting pool!"
"He ran long, tin," a long sigh. "The only thing we know is that spider bring them back. There is no evidence to prove the bombing that he had done. When the jack on the line again, maybe he can tell us more cases."
Starscream. Tangent is the only TF they can speak. 'Please do not hurt us,' and the Red Spider just laughed loudly without mercy. He remembered more, fire, explosion, and extreme anger, and a hysterical scream, but not one of them.
Hot optical lens wear, so easy to re-start the line he saw the ambulance, although the wound is also painful pumping, but the terrible cold and emptiness has gone away from his fire. Ambulances said jacks and trolleys have turned critically ill, Optimus Prime is on the way to be brave and stick to it. They did it.
"Little guys."
Low voice with rumbling echo in the heat and his brothers in the link, bring comfort and comfort. He still could not move, but the sadness and strength hiding in the sound flowed through his body, smashing the frozen steel frame. Optimus Prime, their prime, to risk their own lives only to protect them, so that these young soldiers they are safe on the road to growth. Optimus Prime told them a long time ago that their young TFs are his future hopes. "Where will the leaders go when the war is over?" "He will leave for his friends." When the machine guards were old enough to ask their elders to ask questions, the jacks said to them . But now it can not be too peaceful, so leaders will not leave them, right?
"The other machine guards will not leave until the hot spots get well, maybe you can try to appease them?"
"It has been a long time since I last met, and I hope they will remember me, and I'm sorry, little guys. "
Of course we remember you.
He was so tired that he was too tired, his head full of lead, but the warmth drifted through the link between him and his machine guards and the hand that Prime had put on his shoulder armor Sadness in the fire.
"Happy claws." * Optimus reverberates around the hot audio receiver, "It's been a long time since many years have passed," Prime probably did not know, Snugglebits long ago. Although he has not told anyone yet. But as the jack had said, he eventually became that TF in his dream. He did not know how he knew it, but the answer seemed to be there, just waiting to be tapped, just as a hot spot is a hot spot, no doubt, justly right. He has always been himself in these mortal beings.
"I did everything that I could do as a physician, and my companions, and the rest depended on himself."
Ah, the doctor, heal all the pain, like a jack, a trolley, Hot spots swept the irrelevant idea into the trash.
"Tell me the truth, ambulance."
"It's a brand new and unknown area, Optimus Prime, and the ones that tell you next are just my guesswork based on my years of knowledge."
Silence ghosts linger in the room until it comes out of tin A murmur broke the silence, the ambulance sighed and continued his medical report.
"The good news is that the type of machine guns, including the hotspot, have stabilized, but I still have no way of fixing his arm while he's still self-healing, even though I can format those newer components that are implanted Well adapted to his current configuration, but I'm still not sure if there will be any disagreement. "
Ambulances panicked hotspots, though obscure medical terms left his brain modules in a mess. Hot hands must be sound, to build, rescue. If he is disabled, how is he rushing to the front of the fight?
We would become his arms, albeit not loudly, but he and other machine guards deeply agreed with this conclusion. It came from the depths of his fire, a once-deserted place, but now, his brothers are there, resonating with Optimus Prime's voice and the comfort of the ambulance's palm. Hotspots are more aware than ever before that the machine guards, his brothers, are all in his fire, so intimate, just like a family.
Together, they think, no longer alone.
"The bad news is that they all showed signs of moving ahead into the third growth cycle, perhaps as a response to injuries and traumas. Perhaps it was the loss of comradeship and Ps. Their processors are undamaged, but after we brought them back in, none of them said anything about them until now. The best solution is to mimic this growth response and activate their self healing protocol, but I ... Maybe jacks or trolleys will have some unique insights.I have downloaded all the files about these conditions, but no TF knows them better than they do.
The other one stroked them, ambulances, respectable medical officers who caressed young people who were on the verge of life and death. He was aware of the pain and discomfort he was in. Unlike the previous war loss, it happened long time ago, and everything around him became quiet. The whole body seemed to start burning inside, and when they woke up, all over the world A new look. Taller, stronger, faster, they can twitter more words; change the armor's formula and color; prank climb to the ceiling, use the poor red alarm as a cushion, get nosy Security chief roar loudly.
Thank you, ambulance, "Optimus said." I see. "They snuggle together and enjoy the security that the leader brings around, and just like getting into a state of charge, just the existence of Optimus makes everything warmer and his fire burning like a bright star." ,children. "
We will, they think, even if the hot spot has not really awakened, they promised to Optimus that they would unite and invincibly.
Ambulances are very cautious because they have been silent. Another weak survivor Wisehelm **, blurted out, "Optimus," the voice goes unobtrusively and he tries again hard, this time it sounds better.
"The little guy," Wisehelm's optics are temporarily offline, but he can hear Optimus Prime voice full of smile, a generous hand clap his back armor. "I am here. "
" We were captured by those Decepticons. "
I know, I'm sorry, you're safe now, Decepticons will not hurt you anymore." "
" But why? "Wisehelm finally got the courage to ask this question, which is also about all the TFs that survived the tragedy Why they hurt innocent jacks and trolleys Why did they see the hot spots when they lost their arms? Why do they throw us into the dark and the cold? Where did our brothers go after the fire went out and would we reunite with them again?
"Poor cub. Tin in a corner of muttering.
Optimus Prime heavy sigh. "I wish I knew, children, a brilliant leader who told me that those who hurt others were not inherently frenzied, and they were reduced or forced to live or betrayed and could not see To the harm that they have caused to others, and we must keep in mind that we should not let the enemy's madness crush us, and when we are governed by fear and anger and no longer fight intellect and mercy, we are not different from the Decepticons "
Wisehelm seemed to understand and did not seem to understand anything, but everything fragmented reminded him of the hot spots. Those thugs, they really hurt those feelings empathy? How can the great leader repair this riddled world?
"Royal predator?"
"Yes," Optimus said with a laugh, "I'm glad you remember those stories."
We remember. Optimus Prime told them the story. Long, long ago, there was a great leader whose name was a royal enemy. He was bright and benevolent, fighting for the freedom of sentient beings, burning the fire that would protect them forever, preventing the beacon of hope from collapsing, the universe thriving, the races of different races, We hold hands, or claws, or tentacles, wandering in the sea of friendship and joy, one heart and one mind. Once upon a time, Optimus Prime like arms around these young creatures, the legend described in the dashboard as a bedtime story, but he finally had to leave the seedlings, set foot on the journey again, the world have a lot of interference Pressure on his shoulders, so that leaders can not get out.
"Will you stay?"
Optimus Prime briefly hesitated to make the final answer hot. "Yes, I will stay." But not forever. There are so many things he has to care about, much more than machine guards.
"Before you completely turn around, hot spots, as long as you need, I will stay."
Forever, he wanted to say, we need you forever. However, this request is afraid it will add to the leader's troubles, so the hot can not speak. He could feel how much Optimus wanted to stay with these young warriors, but he had too much to do and too much responsibility. However, they will grow up is not it? One day they will become as powerful warriors as the cross-legged Scud who are so powerful as to help and heal those who are broken, fighting the freedom to defend sentient beings like Optimus Prime and Imperial Enemy. Because of protracted wars and confused fire burning in intense, deep belief was rekindled, bright and burning, like a butterfly plug cocoon rebirth. He looked again at Optimus Prime, unlike his slim, smooth armor, which was covered with scratches and dents.
Of course, we have to grow up so fast that we can protect our leaders.

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A small sad

playswithworms — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 03:26:01 GMT

I decided to splurge for lunch and get a "fancy" (for me) salad from Panera Bread, but got it home and alas! Cilantro! Chopped up in teeny bits, not just a sprig or two, so it had contaminated the whole thing. Managed to get most of it off the chicken pieces so still got to eat those, but the rest went to the compost. Note to self: next time don't get the Asian sesame.

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Happy Saturday!

playswithworms — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 21:08:42 GMT

Had a nice low key and good Thanksgiving with mom, brother, sis 'n law, and niecelet - everyone brought side dishes and brother did a good job with the turkey, niecelet wouldn't try any of it and only ate the pies and desserts XD Donated a wee bit to the Wôpanâak language reclamation project in recognition of the other side of this holiday (and, if I'm to be completely honest, in a cranky response to certain Facebook posts by other relatives who I was just as happy not to visit this year). http://www.wlrp.org/

Yesterday Opted Outside and went for a nice long hike at my own park! Not something I have time for during the year usually, unless I'm leading a group or field trip on a hike, so it was fun to just meander and poke about and explore some spots I hadn't been able to get to for awhile. Found a big empty snail shell for raccoon girl and she loved it so much she played with it for a solid hour - finally took it away and distracted her with treats and ice cubes to play with because I was afraid she was going to short out her poor little raccoon brain!

Have been trying to write, but it goes very slowly - I have twelve different half ideas that just stall out after a few sentences. If I could just choose one to let percolate I might get somewhere! *shakes brain*

Did you know, David Harbour originally auditioned for a different part than Chief Hopper in Stranger Things? XD

This entry was originally posted at https://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/191509.html. Please comment wherever you wish.