chanter1944: a panther being stared at by multiple other animals (this panther has been to Colorado)
With a longer entry to write (I still owe folks that long entry from just post the Winnipeg trip, too, and I know it!). I have very little in the way of spoons left tonight, however. For now, I'll say that I'm under a quilt, I'm all over the place emotionally, and I just want to curl up in the quiet for a while. Good night.
This ficlet isn't finished yet. There are definitely at least a few more paragraphs to fill in before it's anywhere near done. But [personal profile] philomytha left such an excellent story hook at the end of her own ficlet, and between [personal profile] sholio starting it in the first place and an AO3 comment reply she made to me about Bertie being good with little kids, I... I had to.

Consider this a link, in progress, for the de-aging daisy chain.

As-yet untitled cuteness goes back here. )

This doesn't even get into it being Lissie's turn to read a bedtime story to tiny!friends next, since Algy already drew that particular mission and Ginger in my head is simultaneously laughing and hiding his face in his hands (if I know fandom folks' tendencies, you're not escaping this one either, bucko). Why do I get the idea he'd be quite good at the story thing, without overdoing it? Bertie, not Ginger, I mean? My biases are showing again. I'm a sucker for a fine voice for storytelling.

Yes, the younger dog is meant to be a yellow lab.
chanter1944: Janice Rand, in three-quarter profile on a swirly pink background (TOS - Rand: unsung hera recognized)
In the absence of a more eloquent posting style!

The yum: Decent DX at the crack of dawn this morning. Not bad at all, for still being in the wake of a shortwave spectrum radio blackout.

The yuck: Being up at the crack of dawn, and not by my own intention. Messed up sleep schedule strikes again!

The yum: Getting holiday cards and presents sorted, wrapped, and/or sent out. I've got one left to drop in the mail tomorrow - heads up, [personal profile] meimichan - and the last of my cards will go out at around the same time.

The yuck: There really is no corresponding yuck to this one. :) Incessant commercial Giftmas writ large is a whole other story.

The yum: Excellent coffee. Enough said.

The further yum: It's Night of the Nocturne over at Flight Rising, and [personal profile] yhlee gets the credit for getting me hooked on a game of pixel creatures.

The double yuck: The Packers have a defense consisting of wet tissue paper today. Good *lord*. I don't know if we need to fire the defensive coordinator (signs point to yes) or what, but wow. :(

Wheeeee!

Dec. 9th, 2023 11:51 pm
DW appears to be back up and rolling, after an evening of persistent backend fetch errors. What even was going on with that, does anyone know?

I note that, only just now, having had a glass of wine and about a quarter of a second one, did the idea of the fetching of one's backend jokes occur to me. *amused facepalm*
To all those who celebrate. :)
holiday love meme 2023
my thread here


Now with repaired linkage. Oops! Brought to you by erasers: Don't leave home without one!*

*If anyone gets that reference, come squee at me? I will so gleefully squee back!
chanter1944: an older house and surrounding autumn scenery (Wisconsin autumn: smells like fall)
As is usual for this time of year, I've gone north by slightly east and landed in the marsh for a few days. No, not the actual marsh, though I do intend to hike its loop trail tomorrow, cold weather or no cold weather. I have zero intention of falling *in* the thing, though.

There has been mostly excellent food (I discovered I like my cucumbers plain, rather than with dill dip, and wow did that surprise me), there has been a whole lot of chatting with various relatives, blood and otherwise, there has been petting of Kai the sweet shepherd mix puppydog (she travels with the biological father of one of my brothers-in-law*, who was visiting from Colorado and joined us), there have been a flurry of childhood and connected stories, including a few details I'd either gotten wrong or entirely missed at the time (ack!), there have been both dishes and laundry, and there has, as is tradition by now, been the watching of the first Back To The Future movie. I'll catch the other two tomorrow, and because it's still Thanksgiving weekend, I'm calling it a continued tradition even though the timing's a little varied. That's a touch fitting, isn't it? :)

Aaaaaand the Packers beat the Lions, which entailed some good-natured text message teasing of [personal profile] meimichan. XD Call it revenge for the year she came to Thanksgiving with my lot and the darn Lions beat the pants off of us!

For a family Thanksgiving with my crowd, this one was surprisingly free of drama or unpleasant chaos. I'm entirely good with that, twice so because I was a giant doofus and left all my meds on my bathroom counter back on the isthmus. I'm pleasantly surprised my wonky brain chemistry didn't knock me on my butt at some point or other, and I don't know what tomorrow will bring on that front. I'm fortunate and how that a couple of gnarly brain days are the worst I can expect. I'll deal.

For now, I'm going to bed. Sleep meds were among those forgotten on the darn bathroom counter, so let's hope I conk out relatively quickly.

*Long story, but I had my relations mixed up a minute there. One is a brother-in-law by marriage to my sister, the other is *his* brother, and their connection is on their mom's side. That leaves aside the third brother-in-law, who's married to my other sister.
chanter1944: Uhura in the foreground, Chekov looking quizically at something off to the right in the background (TOS - Chekov and Uhura: nerdy joy)
I am a successful whole blood donor in the States this time! Platelets may not be in the cards for a while, but the whole blood donation the once in Manitoba was definitively not a fluke. :D
A few non-graphic details, cut for those who'd rather avoid. )
The yay: [community profile] holiday_wishes is a go for this year! :D I love this community, both in the reading and the granting of wishes. Come join the fun if so inclined! Wishes and wish fulfillment need not cost a thing; there are requests for fic recs, icons, recipes, all sorts of things.

The blah: If any screenreader-familiar folks have a workaround for the relatively new Discord issue that has a person scrolling waaaaaaay further back in a given server's messages than intended, when all they're trying to do is read the most recent few, please tell me? I keep running into the 'you are currently viewing past messages, jump to present' button when attempting to backread a half dozen messages, and I'm really getting sick of it. It wasn't doing the weird scroll thing until the last few weeks, so I'm assuming some update broke access. Grrrr.
chanter1944: Uhura in the foreground, Chekov looking quizically at something off to the right in the background (TOS - Chekov and Uhura: nerdy joy)
Of the Chanter writing an entry via a dreamwidth beta feature system. If this had been an actual emergency, you'd have gotten an eyeful and/or earful of a lot more swearing and squeaking, for a start. This is only a test.

XD You know I had to.

In all seriousness, I am really liking the screenreader-audible autosaved draft notification readout here! Cuts down on the eeeeeek, did I just lose that? concerns.
chanter1944: a Pringles can with the words 'you can't write just one' written across it (drabbles are like pringles)
With a hat tip to the excellent [personal profile] misbegotten for the initial link.

Fic or Treat
[community profile] ficortreat

Chanter1944's Door


DW username: Chanter1944

Light is on for: Everyone who sees fit to stroll by.

What's in the Bowl? Fic! Drabbles, ficlets, and possibly longer works. Also friendly critter video links and music recs, if either of those are so desired.

Let Me Know: Current fandoms, though it's entirely fine to ask if I know fandom X or Y and in fact, please do, you may spark interest in something new over here, are Star Trek (TOS including Pike's captaincy, TNG, DS9, and a little Voyager though it's been ages), Miraculous Ladybug (I'm not caught up on season 5 yet, please don't spoil me!), the Dragonriders of Pern series (Anne's works, not Todd's, sorry all), Band of Brothers, Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, Find Us Alive (podcast), Moonbase Theta Out (podcast), original works and shared writing universes, and any number of oldtime radio shows. Harry Potter is also fair game, especially if you're looking for trans/enby/queer positivity.

Other info: Hard writerly limits: Major character death, noncon, humiliation/degradation, telepathic violation, on-screen animal harm, hopeless endings.
chanter1944: Chapel with binder and stylus in hand, looking at a closer-to-camera McCoy (TOS - Chapel and McCoy: and guard life)
I note, for both the greater good and the tangible, local good, that I received the latest Covid vaccine earlier today. I barely felt it, and I do mean that. The flu vaccine was much more noticeable, don't ask me why. So far, there's extremely mild arm soreness to note, mostly if I mess with the injection site, and that's it. Oh, and the low-grade warm fuzzies, but does it really count as a side effect if it's beneficial? :)

Longhair nerdlady 1, evil virus 0.

There were all kinds of vaccinations going on while I was in the pharmacy, too. I counted at least two others who definitely got one or more vaccines (as in Covid and flu shots together, I've done that myself in the past) before I left. This information made a local friend's day slightly brighter when I passed it to him. He was having what sounded like the mother of all rotten weeks, and I figured he would appreciate news of people taking care of both themselves and each other through science. I was right.

I know I have a longer, friendslocked post to write, but at the moment, I've got something of a mellow glow going, and I'd prefer to keep it. I haven't forgotten, I just need to be in the correct headspace, and this isn't it.
chanter1944: DW's dreamsheep as a radio operator, including rig, mic and headset (Dreamsheep dreams of good DX)
When checking in during a county public service net, make sure your handheld's battery is charged! If you don't, you will end up flailing around, swearing (off mic, I don't need to get busted by the FCC), and scrambling for your charger, after trying and failing to hit the repeater properly at least twice.

I eventually did check in properly, but wow. I could have done without that excitement. The HT is currently sitting on the counter, docked on its charger, and there it's staying overnight. Yeesh!
chanter1944: a cream-colored yellow Labrador lying at the top of a staircase, one paw draped over the top step (mellow yellow)
Here's some cuteness for everyone's day. I *melted* when I read this story this morning. I have reason. The 'settle in, then gently flop over, right onto someone's foot' maneuver is such a labby thing to do, it brought back memories of a certain velvet-furred lovebug who earned the descriptor mellow yellow for a reason. To a lab, there's no such thing as being standoffish; so what if the person next to you is the president? They seem nice, and their foot will probably make a good pillow. Ker-flop!

Had that been me, after the event was over, I would absolutely have asked if I could pet. Awwww. <3

One show-stealing service dog, via NPR.
chanter1944: an older house and surrounding autumn scenery (Wisconsin autumn: smells like fall)
This post brought to you by my having spent a chunk of my free time during the last few days getting caught up in a new series! Er, a new-to-me series, as it's anything but new. I have you to thank, [personal profile] sovay, for my now being a fan of Sapphire And Steel. And, well. You'll see.

So, I was out on a walk earlier, and was passing by a large local park that's almost always full of people of all ages, between the soccer field, the tennis courts, and loads of open green space. And as I got closer... At first I thought someone had unfortunate timing with a child's musical toy, which got a mutter of "It's flipping September, come on," but once I was more in range, I realized what I was hearing was an ice cream truck with a playlist that, for a warm day in fairly early autumn, was downright eerie. I counted at least three Christmas songs, including some of a more religious variety, before the tunes shifted to old-fashioned, vaguely western standards and nursery rhymes, back again to carols and then away a second time.

And forgive me, but all I could think was, this is music out of time! An incursion? I absolutely said, "Oh, this is creepy!" at least once aloud. ... Er. I may have also murmured, "Upstairs and downstairs, upstairs and downstairs," in the suitable rhythm a time or two before I stopped myself. Yes, I was on a public sidewalk and yes, I'm of an age where that sort of thing is generally frowned upon. Boo hoo. The adult Anne Shirley would have done it too, even after 1918, and there have been shades of Anne Shirley in me for ages. I've had that pointed out to me before, by a trustworthy source I know wasn't being either cruel or snide when he said it.

The darn truck continued to mess with my head until I was out of its range, which, given my hearing and local wind action, meant until I was nearly home. Not that it was actively malevolent or any kind of threat, because I can still tell local reality from a particular fictional universe, thanks, but the oddity, the touch of the surreal, that was Christmas music on a warm afternoon in late September, plus the nursery rhymes (darn you assignment 1) and the twinkly mechanism overall definitely put me in a fannish headspace. Er, more of one is probably a better description. Heh.

All the way down the first block, and then the next one, I was daydreaming. I've long since gotten home, but my brain's been... elaborating. And then I admitted I was shelling thirst-scribbling again, because aces can do that too. By way of a self-insert elemental persona, no less. Ugh! I'm embarrassed. And I'm proud of what I've written, of the imagery, but also... shells, Chanter. I was going to post it, but now I hesitate.

Dammit.
chanter1944: an older house and surrounding autumn scenery (Wisconsin autumn: smells like fall)
To alter an In The Heights lyric, ahem. :) Yes, I've been cutting countryloose again. This time it was a 39th birthday trip for me and a why the heck not trip for the other two, planned for several months, with my mother and one of my aunts. I've gotten along with this particular aunt since childhood, and have openly said, more than once, that I'm trying to be something of my generation's equivalent. We're less alike now we're both adults, but as a kid, I very much looked up to her. Anyway.

I took much of this past week off work, which is a rarity for me. We drove up via International Falls, Minnesota, spent the night there, headed west on Wednesday and crossed the border into some truly rural parts of Manitoba, then made for Winnipeg, geocaching all the way. This was in the plans from the start. One of us wanted a couple pairs of earrings, one wanted to make several specific geocache finds, and the third was after donating blood in Winnipeg. We all, for the record, got our wishes!

Yep, Aunt L bought some frankly fantastic earrings at a local shop, Mom got the trio of cache finds she'd been hoping to make, and I was poked in the arm for the betterment of the planet in a country other than my own. :D! I will be warm and fuzzy over that one for a long, long time. I was worried the thing wouldn't come off - either my iron would be too low, or my difficult veins wouldn't cooperate, or my high platelet count would do its thing and I'd clot off early, or my temperature would be too high, or... but it went without a hitch! Everyone was so incredibly kind, too. Not one person batted an eye at the fact that, of the three women standing together at check-in, the one with the white cane was the donor. I absolutely ended up chatting with the person who did the stick, too. Surprise. :) The actual donation went with remarkable speed; my aunt was bemused! The whole event felt a little pleasantly unreal.

I will be talking about one aspect of that donation in my friendslocked post. It has absolutely nothing to do with events as they happened, and everything to do with my reasoning and my brain and who I am.

After a night in Winnipeg, we aimed west again. We were aiming for the border with Saskatchewan (I've gotten so used to calling it Sask, thanks CBC, that my relatives were also doing it by trip's end, though they may have been gently teasing me) but decided to hit the brakes before getting entirely there. We ended up spending Wednesday night in a city I was aware of due to it being a reasonably good DX catch on mediumwave. Brandon, Manitoba has an AM station that can, if conditions are right, be heard underneath WCBS's flamethrower of a signal on 880kHz. I was rather pleased that's where we spent a night! Quite a nice hotel, too. We made the vicinity of Boisevain, another DX catch, the next day, and yes, I absolutely texted a radio pal and told him where we were. His response was, wow!

We didn't go far into Saskatchewan, just enough to find a few geocaches and pick up a cup of... ehh, fair coffee, but I can now say I've been there. Got the faceful of prairie dust from a passing truck, too - a-splutter! From there, it was back over the border (booooo) and then a looooong haul through some fairly desolate parts of North Dakota. We were in Grand Forks on Friday night, and I truly thought we had a much worse day ahead of us, travel-wise, on Saturday, but we actually returned to Wisconsin by mid afternoon on Saturday. I spent Saturday night in the house I grew up in before returning to the isthmus the next day and, given I don't do well with hotel linens (I admit to a little paranoia on the subject of various bugs, specifically those that prefer hair, ugh, eww, I am grossing myself out and yes, I got a visual assist to make sure I had picked up absolutely none of those during our travels) I *zonked* out asleep fairly early that night.

It was a whirlwind, it was a mostly good time, and I'm both glad I went and grateful to be back in my own home, sleeping in my own bed, brushing my teeth at my own sink, and using my own facilities. And, wow, that was a metric crud ton of driving. It's fortunate my aunt actively prefers to drive and volunteered to be the one at the wheel, but my goodness. That was a whole lot of car travel.

Not sure I'll manage the friendslocked post tonight. I've got a fairly decent mellow mood going, and I'd rather keep it than lose it. I thought this glass of wine would facilitate uncorking of the details I'd rather babble about behind a filter, but apparently not. Not really objecting all that strenuously. I'll take a mellow state of mind.

All I'm going to say in closing is that my aster is blooming. :) My lovely little rare variety that I've been looking after all summer has rewarded me with leetle tiny lavender flowers. :)

Good night!
chanter1944: an older house and surrounding autumn scenery (Wisconsin autumn: smells like fall)
And I will write it, but right now, I probably just need to settle in for the night and reorient to my own life. To make a long story a little shorter, I've been to Winnipeg, I've been to rural Manitoba and a little of equally rural Saskatchewan, I've donated blood in a country other than my own, I've done a metric half-ton of geocaching, I've had a few awkward and/or painful conversations with one or more family members as a side effect of traveling in close proximity, and I... have a lot of feelings and a few old, unhealed wounds that have been prodded as a result. I need to settle back into my own skin, and then I'll write up a storm. There may be one public post and one friendslocked one for the less usual personal details, even. No offense to anyone, but I'd sooner some things not run the risk of waving out there on the wider 'net.

Anyway. The trip was, by and large, a great time. It was planned for months in advance; my not saying much about it here has everything to do with my lack of posting. Whoops. And I am still warm and fuzzy over the blood donation thing. :D That was also planned for months in advance.

I'm going to curl up with an oldtime radio stream. Back tomorrow-ish with a longer entry.
chanter1944: a Band of Brothers appreciation icon highlighting Gene Roe (BoB: my fandom needs some scissors!)
Yep. If anyone's interested, I've gotten the yearly poke in the arm, because no one needs influenza, and I'm on public transport roughly every other day. I have zero desire to either catch something myself or be someone else's vector. One moment of ouch! it is.
Snipped for non-graphic talk of the actual vaccination )

One thing I was definitely glad to be made aware of: I was nowhere near the only one getting a vaccine today. Score one for this corner of the world.
chanter1944: a Pringles can with the words 'you can't write just one' written across it (drabbles are like pringles)
That situation when you've been drawn in by a cast of characters but are still utterly canonblind (yes, obvious puns go here), so you're left wondering just where three of them were in the lead-up to a certain day in June of 1944...

We know Ginger was well out of the invasion itself, unless I missed a detail somewhere, and as for Erich... I'm deliberately not lingering over that one. :( Marie's potential whereabouts and actions are a whole other story in themselves.

That doesn't even get to the stealth crossover I've been contemplating on and off, involving a cameo by a genteel American lawyer who's trustworthy enough to be an OSS contact when he travels. I will not drop his surname just yet. XD

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