Early Humans

Jul. 5th, 2025 05:19 pm[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
125,000-year-old ‘fat factory’ run by Neanderthals discovered in Germany

Stone Age humans living by a lake in what’s now Germany systematically processed animal carcasses for fatty nutrients — essentially running what scientists describe as a “fat factory” to boil bones on a vast scale, according to new research.


Note that another thing you can make with animal fat is pemmican: a stable, high-energy trail food made with fat, powdered meat, and a carbohydrate such as berries.  Since it's not something you'd make in a hot climate like Africa (where humans evolved) but rather in a cold climate (such as northern Europe), I'm suddenly wondering if it is in fact a Neanderthal or Denisovan recipe.

Birdfeeding

Jul. 5th, 2025 03:12 pm[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Today is partly sunny and hot.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus some brown birds that might be female blackbirds.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 4/5/25 -- I refilled the thistle feeder.

I picked up the concrete paver that we used for fireworks last night, along with scraps of paper and cardboard left behind.

Volunteer sunflowers are blooming under the fly-through feeder.

EDIT 4/5/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.





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badfalcon: (Tennis Dads)
three tiny joys, glimmers, or moments of soft comfort from today

💇‍♀️ Got my hair dyed magenta! ) Bright, bold, and very me — it’s always a bit of a transformation, and it felt good to see that vivid colour in the mirror again.

🎾 Jannik Sinner, Ben Shelton, Grigor Dimitrov, and Mirra Andreeva all won their Wimbledon matches today — every one of them brought something joyful to watch.

🍔 Takeout burgers for dinner. We were completely wiped — two hours at the hairdresser left us sore, dysregulated, and done. The burgers weren’t fancy, but they were warm and easy and enough.

That’s me for today. If you feel like sharing your glimmers, I’d love to read them 💛
Be gentle with yourself, especially if the good things were hard to find.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Sunshine Revival Challenge 2: Tunnel of Love

Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.

Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like

See "Poem: Legs of Grass, Feet of Flowers."

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-4.png

Read more... )
mxcatmoon: Crown w/words NO KINGS (NO KINGS)
I did not celebrate July 4th. They served hot dogs and hamburgers at work, yeah, but, free food, can't afford to turn down.

Political rant and unpleasant truths under the cut! )

brithistorian: (Default)

A. and I have recently started watching Lie to Me. We're up to s2e7 and I've got a couple of questions. After my recent experience with Person of Interest, I'm coming to you hoping that one of you will either know the answers or else care little enough about Lie to Me spoilers that you'll be willing to try to find the answers:

  1. What's up with the way Lightman walks? He just sort of flops around as he walks, and he tends to stand with his head tilted. I've come up with three possible explanations, but of course it might be none of them:
    1. Something in Lightman's past (which we'll learn about later in the series) explains it.
    2. It's an effort to try to make Tim Roth look shorter. (A. and I were both very surprised when I looked it up and he's 5'8"—we had both thought he was shorter than that.)
    3. It's just How Tim Roth Walks™.
  2. Is the science in the show at all accurate? If so, to what degree is it accurate and to what degree is it handwavium?
badfalcon: (Sinner)
Challenge #2
Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.


☀️ The Romance of Summer: A Love Letter to Tennis
When I saw the prompt What do you love? My first instinct was to be clever. Say something seasonal and tidy. Ice lollies. Sea air. The feeling of sunlight on your knees through the window. But the real answer is louder and messier and always true:

I love tennis.

Not just in summer. All year round. In slow January slogs and awkward 4 a.m. matches because they're in Australia. In rain delays and early exits. But in summer, on the clay at Roland Garros, on the grass at Wimbledon, it blooms. Everything gets bigger. Brighter. Louder. The highs hit higher. The heartbreaks sting sharper.

I love the weird rhythm of a tennis summer. The shift from clay to grass. The way I measure time by who’s still standing on a Friday afternoon. I love the ritual of it: cold drinks, strawberries & cream & prosecco, the particular way sunlight falls across the floor during a 5-setter I wasn’t planning to get invested in. I love the commentary, the chaos, and the wild narratives we build between matches. I love players who break my heart and players I can’t stop watching.

I love how tennis reminds me I still feel things at full volume. That I can cry over a match I knew they were going to lose. That I can believe, right until match point, that maybe this time it’ll be different.

Tennis is stupid and beautiful and exhausting and sometimes the only thing that cuts through the fog in my brain.

It doesn't always love me back. It overwhelms me. It distracts me. It makes me anxious and angry and euphoric and sleepless. But every season, every surface, I come back. I love it wildly. I love it anyway.

Every summer, I fall in love with it again. Even when I swear I won’t.

Strange dreams

Jul. 5th, 2025 07:18 am[personal profile] brithistorian
brithistorian: (Default)

I practically never remember my dreams, but I remember part of last night's dream. Not enough to reconstruct any sort of plot summary, but enough to remember that it contained the following elements:

  • Heavy metal music (centered around a band named "Jihaad" — spelled that way to try to convey that the last syllable should rhyme with "bad," not with "sod")
  • Low-quality animatronic dinosaurs (they couldn't consistently count on the stegosaurus to walk, so they had four wheeled platforms that they'd put on its feet to move it out from backstage, then they'd let it take 2 or 3 steps in front of the audience, and pray that it didn't break down during that time)
  • Luchador wrestling (the wrestlers, the dinosaurs, and the band were on tour together in sort of a Mad Max type environment)
  • Male menstrual cramps (which I suppose implies the existence of male menstruation, but only the cramps came up in the dream)
  • Asshole bosses
  • The importance of proper punctuation
conuly: (Default)
Though, upon reflection, it's surprising that this hasn't happened before in 30+ years of menstruation )

I'd say that was the worst thing to happen this weekend, but then I glanced at the news, and how do things keep getting worse? I thought we might at least get a reprieve over the holiday weekend, Congress would all go on vacation and not pass any terrible bills in the interim, but I guess not.

I'm not linking to it, not today. I know how to take a break, even if they don't. Take this article on amenorrhea instead.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

What should the role of a government be, what boundaries and limitations should it have?

Read more... )

Fireworks

Jul. 4th, 2025 09:13 pm[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Tonight we did our home fireworks show. :D These are the things we bought from JT Fireworks Sales in Charleston...

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
In honor of the Fourth of July, here are a few tidbits to enjoy.

Today's Adventures 6/28/25 -- We bought fireworks for our home show, and we watched the show in Tolono.

Fireworks 7/4/25 -- Read about our home show tonight.

Read more... )

Birdfeeding

Jul. 4th, 2025 02:50 pm[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Today is mostly sunny and hot.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a mourning dove.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I checked the south lot and put topsoil in a few low spots, prior to our fireworks show tonight.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I picked up a trough pot that fell off the old picnic table, restored the curry plant and purple basil as best I could, then watered them and a few other things in the house yard.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I sowed 6 pots with mulberry seeds. Half are from a particularly pleasing mulberry sapling near the west end of the old fishpond, the other half from a mulberry that was left on the porch step as if a gift.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden and a few seedlings in the savanna.

My partner Doug mowed the ritual meadow and prairie paths.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I picked a handful of herbs to make a skillet scramble for supper.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I picked a handful of blackberries in the prairie garden. There are plenty left; I ran out of heat tolerance long before I ran out of berries. :D

Cicadas are singing.

EDIT 7/4/25 -- I picked a handful of blackberries in the prairie garden. Still more left, but I'll have to hunt those another day, because it is still hot and the sun is about to set.


.
badfalcon: (Sheppard)
I've been wanting to get better at noticing the small, good things in my days, especially the quiet ones that are easy to miss when I'm overwhelmed, in pain, or just having a rough brain day. I keep going back to [community profile] 3_good_things_a_day but figured I'd share them here too.

So this is me, starting a little series called glimmers and good things: three things each day (or as close to daily as I can manage) that made me smile, feel seen, feel safe, or feel a tiny spark of joy.
They won’t always be profound. Sometimes they’ll be “I had a nice sandwich” or “Carlos Alcaraz didn’t destroy my soul today.” But they’ll be real, and I want to keep track of them.

three tiny joys, glimmers, or moments of soft comfort from today
🧡 Someone sent me a gorgeous pic of Darren & Simone ) they found online because they knew I’d love it and wanted to make sure I’d seen it. It made me feel so known.

📚 Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant Tumblr reblogged my review of Rolling in the Deep (!!) and I am still quietly screaming about it.

🍕 Friday night comforts: pizza, mango Pepsi Max, Nutella ice cream, and Carlos Alcaraz winning his 3rd round match against Struff. We feast. 🎾💛

That’s me for today. If you feel like sharing your glimmers, I’d love to read them 💛
Be gentle with yourself, especially if the good things were hard to find.

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