This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from gothfvck and see_also_friend. It also fills the "Resist Oppression" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.
Dad is out of the hospital and doing well! Surgery went quite well, and he's got pretty low pain as long as he's not actively using the ankle in question. I expect that Mom and I will be doing our best to minimize said use for at least the next week or so, probably longer.
I just cleaned off the kitchen counter and put the last bowl/spatulas in the sink to soak (the dishwasher is already running, and all the cupcakes are cooked and 4 out of 5 frostings are made (I just finished the strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream) - tomorrow I will make the ganache and possibly also a whipped ganache (I've never done it with butter in it - does that make it more buttercream-ish?) just to change things up a bit.
Today, I baked the strawberry (doubled to make 80), apple cider (60), and funfetti (doubled to make 80) cupcakes - there could have been more funfetti, but not enough to fill a whole pan, so I didn't bother. I added cinnamon bits from King Arthur to the apple cider ones and dipped them in maple cinnamon sugar, which is a change, one that hopefully people will like.
I also discovered that the cupcake carriers I've had sitting in a box under a chair in my living room for a few months are the wrong size (they are for standard-sized cupcakes) so I only have 10 mini ones and I need 13, so I will use the some foil lasagna pans for my brother and sister and one of the kids - they'll get a few more cupcakes out of it, since the carriers hold 2 dozen but the 9 x 13" tray fits about 30. *hands* I'm just glad I still have a pack of them left to use; otherwise, I'd have been up a creek.
Tomorrow is Pipe-a-palooza 7: The Pipening! (yeah, it's kind of shocking to me I've been doing cupcakes for 7 years now - I started in 2019 - but I like it more than the chocolates [and it's also less time-consuming than the chocolates were] and I can't do ice creams anymore due to logistics, though they remain my all-time favorite of the homemade Christmas gifts I've done over the years.) Wish me luck! It's always the hardest part for me. Hopefully I will remember to take pictures to share afterwards.
Whoops, I started this entry an hour ago and got distracted by stuff like packing my overnight bag and refilling my water bottle etc. so I'm just gonna hit post now and work up the energy to go wash my hair.
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Tuesday, December 23, to midnight on Wednesday, December 24. (8pm Eastern Time).
Christmas is here aaaaaaah I am somehow not mentally prepared for Christmas Eve to be tomorrow.
However, all my preparations are sorted except for the things I need to do on Christmas morning, and I have done the tragic washing up so my house is ready for me to mostly abandon it for a couple of days.
Choir went pretty well - our Christmas concerts have had real issues with falling audience numbers for the last few years; we used to sell out four or five concerts, but lately it's been more like "two or three half-full". So this year they obviously decided to try something new, and we did three different, although overlapping, concerts with different vibes - two were basically sold out, and the third was all but the top tier, which only had about 50 people in it, but was probably still better turnout than any of the concerts last year. So it looks like that has worked, and we can expect more of that in the future.
We did a lot more "popular" music - White Christmas, Mariah Carey, the JoBros, Shakin' Stevens... I'm kind of torn, because I'm not really good at that sort of thing, and I'm not really sure why you would want to come and see us do "Like It's Christmas" rather than a rock or pop choir, whereas we can do you a genuinely excellent rendition of O Magnum Mysterium or Stars or something like that which plays to our strengths. But the audiences really seemed to enjoy it, and most of the songs were quite fun to sing. And we did do Darius Battiwalla's arrangement of "O Holy Night", which is gloriously over-the-top (the bit where the fortissimo orchestra drops out from under the chorus!).
Our conductor kept encouraging us to "bop" while singing the more fun pieces, but I really wasn't sold - the community choir were doing something similar, and frankly I thought it looked messy and distracting no matter how often he claimed it was essential for the music. I think you do actually need to do properly synchronised movement if you want it to look good (NB: I absolutely do not want to do properly synchronised movement either! this is not why I am in a choir!).
Tomorrow I'm going for brunch with Miss H and then over to my parents', probably to help with last-minute prep before the rest of the family arrive! I won't see them, though, because I'll be off to church before they get there. That will be a Christmas Day treat.
Because I am a nerd — no, really — every time I watch Monsters, Inc. I think about the biology and physiology of its monsters. As in, I very strongly believe that all the different monsters in the film are the same species, rather than separate species of monsters who have all decided to live together in harmony (a la Zootopia). I hypothesize the monster DNA does not strongly code for morphology, and so you get this wide range of body shapes, limb numbers, squish levels, etc, and just because the parents look one way doesn’t mean their offspring look similarly. You never know what you’re going to get until it comes out. So, like apples and dogs, every monster, as a phenotype, is a complete surprise.
Have I thought about this too much? Yes. Yes, I have. But if I have, it’s because Monsters, Inc. has encouraged me to do so. The filmmakers at Pixar, whose fourth film this was, went out of their way to build out a monster world so detailed and complete, and so full of little grace notes, details and Easter eggs, that one can’t help but follow their lead and build it out a little more in one’s head. Thus, the intriguing nature of monster DNA, and how it is (in my head canon, anyway) why you see so many weird and wonderful monster designs in this film.
The story you will know, especially if you were a kid at any point in the 21st century (or had a kid at any point in this time). The monsters under your bed exist, and they are using you for responsible renewable energy! Turns out that the screams of children are an extremely efficient source of clean power (this is not explained, nor should it be). The monster world has become equally efficient at scaring the ever-living crap out of kids, through a corps of professional scarers, who lurk and roar and flash their teeth and fangs and what have you. These scarers are not just municipal workers but the sports stars of the monster world, with other monsters having posters and trading cards of them.
This premise, I will note, could be played for absolute “R”-rated terror, and has been, several times — not necessarily an entire power plant apparatus, but surely the idea of horrifying creatures feeding off the fear of children. But as we all know, life is easy, comedy is hard. The real expert mode is taking this terrifying premise and wringing laughs out of it.
Monsters, Inc. does it by, essentially, being a workplace comedy. The monsters aren’t monsters when they’re off the clock — well, they are monsters, but they’re not scary. They’re just getting through their day like everyone else. Our two protagonists, James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) are your typical Mutt n’ Jeff pairing and workplace partners; Sully, who is big and blue and can roar with the best of them, is a champion scarer, and Mike is his sidekick and support staff, keeping him in shape and making sure they meet their scare quota and then some. Mike and Sully have great chemistry and it’s easy to overlook that they’re the reason you have to put a pee sheet on your kid’s bed.
The film also flips the script: Yes, the monsters’ job is to scare kids, but the fact is, the monsters are flat-out terrified of children — like a toxic game of tag, if one of the kids touches you, you could die. Even a sock brought back into the monster world is cause for a biological detoxification regimen not seen this side of a chemical spill. So naturally a toddler named Boo slips into the monster world and follows Mike and Sully home, and from there — well, things get squirrely. There is also some workplace espionage, and a subplot with Mike trying to get a girlfriend, and tales of energy extraction gone too far, but you hopefully get the point, which is that the filmmakers decided that the terror aspects of the film were the least interesting things to follow up on.
I love all of this. Also, it shouldn’t be a surprise — this is a Pixar film, and it is rated “G,” so the chance that this movie would go Full Thing were never exactly high to begin with. But anyone who has ever read my work knows that what I’m fascinated with is the mundane in the fantastic. Yes, it’s nice you’re a James Bond villain, but how are you making that work financially and logistically? Sure, there are 300-foot monsters that stomp about, but what is their actual ecology? And so on and so forth. It’s no great trick to make a monster. It is a trick to make a monster city where there is a logical reason for monsters to do what they’re famous for doing, and where doing that thing leads to very human complications.
The folks at Pixar are with me on this, overengineering their monster city with gags and bits and sly asides (the fanciest restaurant in town called Harryhausen’s? Chef’s kiss. The tribute to the Chuck Jones – Michael Maltese classic animated short “Feed the Kitty”? Two chef’s kisses! Two!), and giving us characters whose monstrous nature is a source of comedy. Having Sully voiced by John Goodman, an Actual Human Teddy Bear, is inspired, especially for his scenes with Boo. Meanwhile, Mike Wazowski is a literal ball of anxiety, and Billy Crystal has never been better cast. I would watch an entire movie of Mike and Sully just riffing, a fact which informs Monsters University, the movie’s sequel (well, prequel), which is not as good as the original but that hardly matters because we get more time with these two.
Monsters, Inc., is probably no one’s pick for the best film Pixar has ever made (that’s probably Toy Story 2, maybe Wall-E, with Coco being the dark horse candidate), but as I noted before, this series isn’t about the best movies, it’s about the movies I can settle in and rewatch over and over. Of all the Pixar films, Monsters, Inc., is this for me. You probably won’t weep watching this, like you might with those other Pixar films I mentioned. This one is thoroughly low-stakes. But low stakes is okay! I love looking at it, and keep wanting to be able to look around corners and go into shops and see how all the monsters are going ahead and living their lives.
There’s a whole world here I want to explore, and many things I want to speculate about. I want to tell the monsters my theory about their DNA. I’m sure that will go over super well.
Today is sunny and cool, almost warm -- too warm for a jacket even. That's warmer than even the January thaw used to get.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I filled the trolley twice with twigs from the parking lot brushpile, then dumped them in the firepit in the ritual meadow.
I saw a flock of mourning doves in the trees around the ritual meadow.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.
I've seen a fox squirrel running through the trees. I heard a woodpecker but didn't see it.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit. I think I've actually removed all the ones with berries that I want to burn, so the rest should be free for other uses.
An all-new Bundle featuring the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, the tabletop game of eldritch horror from Monte Cook Games based on Steve Shell and Cam Collins' Old Gods of Appalachia anthology podcast.
Hi everybody! Today marks ten days until signups start, and this year, we're going to count down to signups with flashback banners. Every day from now until one day before signups, we'll post one of our past banners. This one is from 2016!
See you all at signups!
SIGNUPS & NOMINATIONS 2-9 Jan (anywhere in the world) DEADLINE 23 Feb (anywhere in the world) REVEALS 2-4 March
Had not been seeing these lately, but over the past few days have been spotting several out of the back windows.
Which is one cheering thing among various niggles and peeves -
Yesterday I was informed that my order from Boots was being delivered, and then got two texts saying they had tried to deliver it but no-one answered. WOT. There was somebody here all the time.
Also a text that my other package (fresh yeast via eBay) had been delivered (this comes through the letterbox) - no sign of this so presume it has gone to the wrong door, and so far nobody has come round to pop it through ours.*
However, at least the Boots parcel turned up today: address label had street number blurred so reasons for mistaking, usual postperson recognised name, possibly yesterday was a seasonal worker?
Other annoyance: Kobo ereader running very sluggish - though this does not seem to apply across all books, which is weird?? Anyway, I connected to wifi in order to update the software, as possibly bearing on the matter, and dash it, it synced a whole load of things I had already downloaded and I have been obliged to clean up the duplicates.
I am, though, grateful that Christmas grocery orders have been nothing missing and no substitutions except for 1 thing which was not at all critical. Also oops, the pudding I ordered was rather smaller than I anticipated, but I feel one can have too much Xmas pud, and there are mince pies, brandy butter, etc.
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