tag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640marmota_bmarmota_bmarmota_b2023-02-17T21:15:20Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:23401The ridiculousness of ads2023-02-17T21:15:20Z2023-02-17T21:15:20Zpublic0 Facebook shows me a lot of sewing ads. No big complaints from me; but sometimes they're still ridiculous, because that's the way of ads.<br /><br />Ads for a new-to-me pattern company: "These styles would look so good on you!"<br />Featured styles so far:<br />A blouse with no bust darts. I have a sewing D cup.<br />Trousers with dropped waist. I have a long torso and short legs.<br /><br /><br />Honestly, it's a bit comforting to know they still don't know everything about me. :D<br type="_moz" /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=23401" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:23229Meh and yay2023-02-07T10:50:11Z2023-02-07T11:09:44Zpublic0 I've just kind of spontaneously left a Facebook group that used to be a source of joy and inspiration and whimsy because it's been increasingly becoming a source of frustration. It now officially has a "controversy" and, you now, ain't nobody got time for that.<br />I think that's often the problem when groups with too wide a focus become too big. People start using them to vent, for one.<br />I began doubting myself over that move pretty much immediately - night shifts this week, I'm not at my best - but, well, night shifts are a fact of my life now and if that group that used to give me a mood boost is ceasing to do so, I really do have better things to do with the free hours of my day than to keep filtering that out.<br /><br />I think it was also brought into sharp focus because I had been previously browsing vintage knitting patterns online that people have generously shared for free and... THAT is the sort of online experience I want to be a part of (even actively, if I can). And I think that group has become too big for its shoes and for that sort of thing; individual voices are beginning to get lost unless they're loud, and the loudest people now are the disgruntled ones.<br /><br />And since that's been my experience, that's the end of my venting in this post, and instead I shall excitedly share what I might have once shared in that group: that I started knitting a gauge sample from a cone yarn I got for free at work and I think it's going to be a perfect match for vintage 3-ply yarns from 1930s & 1940s patterns. As per Retro Claude's video <a href="https://youtu.be/pH1aT8ab91w">youtu.be/pH1aT8ab91w</a>. And I think if I triple some thin yarns from the same work-related yarn haul, I may get similar results.<br /><br />It's not what I had once planned to write about on this blog, but whatever. Creativity is creativity.<br /><br /><br />P.S. Also, I now finally have a digital scale which makes planning knitting projects so much easier. The old kitchen scale is hugely imprecise. (It was equally frustrating for baking, but at least there I can do it by the ear to an extent.)<br type="_moz" /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=23229" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:22083Venting a hundred times nothing2022-10-18T16:22:24Z2022-10-18T16:28:05Zpublic0I need YouTube to introduce other options for when you click on "Not Interested".<br /><br />Something like:<br /><br />- "Genuinely just not interested in this particular subject, that's a valid reason not to be interested"<br />- "The subject is something I'm actively trying to avoid for reasons that are none of your business"<br />- "The title of this video insults my sensibilities for helpful unvarnished factuality"<br />- "Even though I might be interested in the subject on general terms, everything about this particular video's title and preview tells me the style of this particular video will not be my cup of tea"<br />- "I love this channel but this one particular video looks like very much not my cup of tea and I'd prefer if you stopped recommending it"<br />- "I might even be interested in this video under other circumstances but right now I want to let someone responsible know that the automatic translation of the video's clickbaity title is absolutely awful and hurts my brain with how much it misses the mark for what sounds natural and inviting in my native tongue and culture, please turn it back into the source language"<br />- "Several of the above"<br /><br />I'm finding myself very often opting out of baking videos with titles that are something like "You won't believe this awesome cake! Only 15 minutes! Grandma's recipe!" or "Forget XY, I only do this now!" None of that info is anything I find the most important ingredient of a recipe title, and that usually leaves me thinking that, with how many recipes exist out there, I can easily live without this one. Sadly, YouTube's algorhythm does not yet seem to possess the ability to recognise the incompatibility between a specific user and a specific style of video title. So if I remember, I usually opt out of those channels altogether, and for a while YouTube will get the message, and then it will look at my subscriptions to the Townsends channel and Tasting History and go "She's interested in baking!" all over again.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=22083" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:21188It's on YouTube!!!!2022-03-14T21:46:21Z2022-03-14T21:46:21Zpublic0 This: <a href="https://youtu.be/eVzfcfyWIQA">youtu.be/eVzfcfyWIQA</a><div><br />You see, that's a childhood favourite I never thought I'd hear again so, um, I might be crying a bit right now, especially because it's even better than I remembered. It's so dramatic, it's awesome (it's about a peasant/farmer uprising).<br /><div><br />Posting from my phone so I'm struggling with more fancy formatting.<br /><br />But! But! But!<br /><br />There's a whole playlist - it's from a set of LPs that we have, that we had when I was little, all old Czech music, folk music, and mostly not the stuff everyone knows.<br /><br />Our gramophone doesn't work anymore, and this one slipped through the cracks at that point in time when father tried to digitalise old favourites. We mostly listened to it when I was really little and then later it somehow fell out of the rotation.<br /><br />So I just vaguely remembered it and did not think I'd hear it again and then suddenly I found another piece from that LP while searching for something completely different and the name vaguely rang a bell and that's how I found the whole playlist and this and...<br /><br />I don't even know if you'll appreciate it but for me this is finding some of my earliest memories again, this is HUGE; so I needed to share it.<br /> </div>(And here's another post that none of the predefined moods do justice to, but this time in a good way!)</div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=21188" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:20156Further update2021-08-12T03:49:14Z2021-08-12T03:49:14Zawakepublic2 So, guess what, it wasn't just Lyme disease, it was anaemia. BAD anaemia...<br /><br />This is a public service announcement: iron deficiency can make you depressed. If you feel scatterbrained, and always tired and out of spoons for no particular reason, and depressive, try looking into that possibility. Obviously anaemia has other symptoms but one of the terrible things about it is that they're all fairly minor on the surface and it makes even your brain go weird and then you don't put things together. I had it bad some years ago and have to watch out for it now, now that I know what the other things feel like, too. My sister has it now, worse. I think I might try to put together some descriptions of some of the odder, less-listed but typical symptons we've both experienced so other people may also know what to look out for and maybe realise they have it? It's apparently pretty widespread, especially in women (for obvious reasons).<br /><br />Contrary to <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://edenfalling.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://edenfalling.dreamwidth.org/'><b>edenfalling</b></a></span> who says August is the month nobody takes vacation, in my world for the past five years it's the month when everybody takes vacation. I'm starting my two weeks off on Monday. The two weeks before were supposed to be light work as things are getting finished and orders are petering out, but yesterday it suddenly ended up being "light work but I had to stay at work for nearly twelve hours as things needed to be finished."<br /><br />Like, mostly doing nothing in particular but I had to be there and watch over things. So I took that opportunity to do some sorting out of myself, among other things making some mind maps which my sister recently suggested as a way to organise my tangled mind processes.<br /><br />Turns out that yeah, it's a great way to put down all the scattered interconnected ideas I carry in my head for WIPs and ongoing stories and crafts that can never quite be put down in a linear manner. So I'm definitely going to do a lot more of that during vacation. And hopefully it will help me work on some of my ongoing stories. This is also a public service announcement of sorts. If you have trouble writing chronologically and filling in the gaps even when you have vague ideas of what needs to happen... maybe mind maps are a good way to fill the gaps? Not sure. I have yet to see how it works for me more longterm. At the very least, though, I think it may be my best way to battle block in that my blocks often aren't necessarily a lack of ideas (as most advice on conquering blocks assumes) but rather a lack of ideas on how to make the existing ideas work organically... and mind maps are kind of an organic way of organising thought.<br /><br />I'm curious to see if it will also help with the process of processing, as touched upon in the previous posts... On that front, I have a while ago decided to write a list of all the little(ish) things that have been annoying me recently and that I haven't really had time to process because of all the big things, and then ceremoniously burn said list. So I started on that, too. It's a long list and it's definitely not complete but even just putting it down is quite therapeutic, and I'm lilooking forward to burning it because... fire is also a bit therapeutic, for me, in terms of things like watching a candlelight or a campfire.<br /><br />... I just wish said future ceremonious burning could stop some of the (biggerish) things on the list.<br /><br type="_moz" /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=20156" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:19926Update2021-07-13T17:46:27Z2021-07-13T17:46:27Zgroggypublic0I took the long weekend of 5th and 6th (two Czech state holidays) off. As in, I allowed myself to do pretty much nothing. I'm feeling a lot better, also now that I told myself that I'm absolutely not doing anything with deadlines that I don't have to.<br /><br />Eating quark ice creams. And vegetable meals.<br /><br />The newest bad news from that last post is that my sister has Lyme disease. But fortunately she caught it early, immediately got medication, and also feels a lot better. Turns out part of the previous stress was also the fact that the thing was already eating away at her, tiring her out and making her act more erratically than she normally would. I guess it's a sign of the times that we both just put it up to the stress of the tmes.<br /><br />Right now I'm also tired, but that has to do with the fact it is hot today. Amazingly, that's not a common everyday occurrence the way it was for several years in the recent past. In the space of the terrible week from the previous post, I also managed to go on two fantastic trips with mom in perfect warm but not hot weather. So. It's not all terrible. I just needed a much longer stretch of "nothing in particular" than I had been getting to be able to process things.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=19926" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:19615I'm not doing the NFE this year (this is not a fun post to post)2021-07-01T18:51:33Z2021-07-01T18:51:33Zexhaustedpublic2No news on that front so far, but even if it happens, I'm not doing it. I just don't have the mental capacity for it.<br /><br />The last thing I need right now is a) another project that takes precedence because of external factors (= deadline); b) being at the mercy of external factors in yet another thing (= someone else's prompts).<br /><br />I just know I could not do it justice this time around. I'd much rather leave it at the high of last year for now, and work on my own neglected stories.<br /><br />I've stopped managing to process everything that happens. About two weeks ago I suddenly stopped short with the shocked realisation that the attack on the US Capitol was this year. In conversation with my sister today, we hit upon a couple more things that were this year.<br /><br />I had a different version of this post written up. Before I got around to actually posting it, there's a brand new bad thing to process, rendering most of my ponderings from earlier today kind of moot (still true, but the whole attitude has shifted). That's a third upheaval in the space of one week. And that's just because I don't count the little ones like "oh, there's someone coming in two weeks to check the gas and I'm not sure there will be anyone at home so maybe we'll have to call in beforehand. Bother."<br /><br />There was a tornado a week ago. In Czechia. In South Moravia. Not anywhere near where I live, but exactly in the area I have just recently deduced figures in some of my most crucial early memories that are a bit of a touchstone for me.<br /><br />The very thing I was recently drawing on to maintain some semblance of order and mental stability in my life is now the scene of one of the most devastating tragedies in my country in decades.<br /><br />I just can't.<br /><br />So I'm not doing the NFE. It would probably be disastrous for my mental health, and I would not write anything good.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=19615" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:19046I bought a dibble (A post about language nerddom)2021-04-10T20:03:04Z2021-04-10T20:11:12Zpublic0And it makes me rather giddy both because I like that gardening implement, and because I like the fact that English has a special word for it. Aaaand I named a dwarf character in The Peridan Chronicles that for both those reasons.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />In other news regarding English and my language nerddom, I took a random <a href="https://www.arealme.com/vocabulary-size-test/en/">test that purports to assess the size of your English vocabulary</a> and to my surprise it landed me in "Top 0.14%, You are Shakespeare! You can even create new words that will expand the English dictionary."<br />It calculates, in a process I have no idea about, my vocabulary size at 29886. Why that particular number, I also have no idea.<br /><br />Which is all quite funny to me as a native Czech speaker, and can probably be entirely laid at the door of:<br />A) My language nerddom <em>and</em> my family's language nerddom.<br />B) The fact I probably read a lot of writers (both "official" and in fanfiction) who use big words well.<br />C) Okay, and the fact I studied English and read a lot of big word books for school I never would have read otherwise.<br /><br />I ended up not really "using" my studies (I work in the textile industry now which never occurred to me as a possible career path at the usual decision-making times of life but I love it because it combines lots of things I like in a productive whole AND challenges me and pushes me to keep learning). But... I also did end up using them because at my previous job they specifically hired me also because I had good English and could play occasional interpretter and translator.<br />So, yeah. I suppose it is possible I have a really big vocabulary in English also because I can tell you, for example, what a heddle is...?<br />(It's this implement in a weaving loom - kind of a wire, can be made of wire in simpler looms but modern power looms have specifically made heddles - that the warp yarns go through, and it's part of the mechanism that moves the warp yarns up and down, so that the weft yarn can be inserted, and then the warp yarns go over and under the weft yarns and that creates the fabric.)<br /><br />And I'm a language nerd so I also know what a dibble is.<br /><br />But also I'm a lazy English user in a way and don't use my presumably large vocabulary all that much, actively. It mostly manifests in the way that... I will casually throw words like "manifest" into a rambling post about my life where others would probably say "show"...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />Father sends us daily e-mail updates on his life. Just little tidbits, just so we can be sure he's okay and hasn't fallen down from a tree or something. (It was my sister's idea about two years ago, and in this whole coronavirus mess it's become a pretty nice feature because he often sends us news about ships in the Baltic, and videos of locomotives in Wales, and stuff like that.)<br /><br /><p>And sometimes language nerddom manifests. So this one time recently he goes:<br /><br /> "Cymraeg (he actually used the bohemised Czech word for it but I need to press the point he pointedly uses that language's word for itself, not the English word for it) usually puts adjectives behind the noun except for the word for old so:<br /><br />hen tŷ - old house<br />tŷ newydd - new house</p>But then I realised that just like "haul" is "salt", "hen" is "sen"."<br /><br />And I go, wait, what? (Because "sen" is "dream" in Czech.)<br />And father goes "like senior".<br />Me: Oh, right. I actually don't speak Latin and the Italian word is different, so it didn't click.<br />Father: I don't speak Latin, either.<br />Then he proceeds to give me a rundown of the two Latin words for "old" and various words in other languages they are related to.<br /><br />I present to you: My father who claims he's not good at languages.<br /><br />Father also:<div style="color:black;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </div><ul><li>Visited Wales on a holiday with friends and then went and bought himself a Welsh textbook in London on the way home. That's the souvenir he brought home. That, and a picture children's dictionary for us. Like it never even occurred to him to think the way some other parents might, that maybe he should bring us an <em>English</em> dictionary from Britain since that's definitely the language we'll get more practical use out of? (I believe the only other souvenir he brought was a bunch of pieces of slate.)</li><li>Come to think of it, the thing he brought us from his first trip to Germany immediately after the Velver Revolution was, you guessed it, a picture dictionary. It never occurred to me until now but, folks, this was the time when everyone was bringing all the cool stuff we could not have behind the Iron Curtain, and he bought us a dictionary. It says a lot about the collective language nerddom in this family that we loved that book and never once questioned that choice.</li><li>Many years ago bought a classic etymological dictionary of the Czech language when it was published anew, and then would reach for it <em>a lot</em> when I was growing up to read up on the etymology of random words. (We still reach for it, and one of my regrets in life is that I don't have my own copy.)</li><li>Studied Tibetan for about 14 years (the crazy amount of years was a recent discovery of mine) basically just for the kicks. And because a Czech authority on Tibetan was kicked out of his job because Communists, so a group of friends got together to take private lessons in Tibetan from him to support him, and invited father along, and father's reaction to said invitation was basically "yeah, sure, sounds like fun". I cannot vouch for this, but I have a strong suspicion that he may have stuck to it the longest in the end. (It's now been nearly thirty years since father did anything with the language, but he can still write in it at the drop of a pen.)</li><li>Happens to own a Greek grammar textbook for no particular reason.</li><li>Read the entirety of <em>Pan Tadeusz</em> in the original Polish. (I mean, I own the book in the original Polish because why should I read my favourite book in a translation when I found the original in a secondhand bookshop, eh? But this is my father who doesn't really read fiction we're talking about here.)</li><li>Will also read me passages from Latvian news (usually something pertaining to his interest in trains or trams) and be surprised that I have zero idea what he's talking about.</li><li>Can read English Wikipedia articles with no big difficulty.</li><li>Will point out the various words for "heart" that can be found in popular songs in different languages.</li></ul><br />:D<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />... there was this one time during our Grammar School years when my sister and her friends threw an "egg party" over the Easter holidays, and my sister's contribution was to look up the word for "egg" in all sorts of languages and make up a game of matching the word to the language.<br /><br />This is the sort of stuff it never occurred to me to question before an online test told me I have a bigger vocabulary in my second language than most native speakers.<br /><br />I knew I was a language nerd because it's a sure-fire way to get me going and also it annoys me to no end when people use Tolkien's Elvish plurals for individuals.<br />I also knew I came from a family of language nerds because yeah, it kind of gets us <em>all</em> going.<br /><br />But this trip down the memory lane suddenly made very clear to me how much it's just part of life for me and how weird it probably would be for a lot of other people.<div style="text-align: center;"><br />* * *</div><br />The other thing I turn out to be good at, and have known for some time I'm good at, is <a href="https://www.arealme.com/colors/en/">colour differentiation</a>.<br /><br />It was, in fact, one of the things I did in my previous jobs, and one of the things I miss about it in my current one. (The current one wins on many other fronts, though.)<br /><br />It suddenly occurred to me now that I use colour differentiation (or, rather, the lack of it) as a method of recognising Photoshop (colour) jobs. I thought other people can be more susceptible for taking Photoshop jobs for the real thing because they'd never tried their hand at it themselves (which I have, mostly for fun), and don't have any background in art and no experience with how colours change in shadows or with distance, and thus don't have my eyes for it. I can spot where someone just coloured a whole area, by how it's the same hue, and how at the edges of said area there will often be these sharp delineations where in a real photo it would be more of a colour gradation. But it suddenly occurred to me now that maybe one of the reasons could simply be because <em>they literally don't have my eyes for it</em>. Huh.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=19046" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:18836The experience of a reader2021-03-24T10:13:38Z2021-03-24T10:13:38Zpublic0I was seized by a desire to watch "I'll Make a Man Outta You", as you do, so I looked it up on YouTube and then ended up leaving a comment at a comment about how wow, Mulan was actually being strategic. Which I will now quote here, because it jumpstarted more of a thought and I want to share <em>that</em> thought here.<br /><br /><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string">"I first encountered this story in the form of a library book where it was straight up pointed out that's what she did, so I was on a look out for it in the scene even before I saw the film. I was a greater reader than a film-watcher, so I encountered many Disney films as books first.</span><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string"><br /></span><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string">But in retrospect, I have a feeling it was specifically a run of Disney books published in the Czech Republic where the stories were re-told by a Czech writer (Pavel Šrut); he had a great gift for picking up on the really important stuff in them and telling a great story in the confines of a children's picture-book (he wrote his own excellent original stuff, too, so he wasn't just a hack writer paid to do it). It coloured my view of the stories a lot, in a good way. But it also meant that with some of the films, when I finally watched the thing, I was actually disappointed that they spent so much time on the unimportant things in the story and many of these important character-building moments were kind of passed over... :D"<br /><br />And now the further thought is... I think those books also kind of spoiled me for the blockbustery kinds of films that everyone raves about when I finally get to see them. I'm the sort of person who often watches films with a delay. So I often find myself in a similar situation, where people filter out the important stuff for me so I then end up being disappointed by all the unimportant stuff also present. Everyone was raving about Pacific Rim and Mako Mori so I instead ended up being disappointed that she actually wasn't the main protagonist. Et cetera.<br /><br />I also once had the odd experience of realising that I had actually never seen the animated Anastasia, and that the real thing had a lot more of the crazy black magic stuff and explosions and whatnot in it than the story in my head.<br /><br />I mean, it's not my only experience. But I realised that that sort of experience is kind of symptomatic of me as a reader first. </span><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string">I grew up without a TV, and moreover, I grew up kind of spoilt by the choice of films I did get to see - because when I did get to see something, it was often "tested by time". It doesn't mean I don't watch my share of mindless entertainment - especially because I think sometimes you simply do <em>need</em> that sort of thing, to clear your head - and also I'm not into heavy artsy stuff either. But I am kind of spoilt by, say, quality old Czech fairy tale films where very often the character arc <em>is</em> the story, with far less of the flashy stuff around it that actual Disney films delight in. Many of which were based on stories by, um, actual writers like Pavel Šrut (who did indeed write one fairy tale screenplay) who didn't just focus on what would look good on the screen but what would work as a story. (This is a gross simplification of both sides of the coin but I hope you get what I'm getting at.)<br /><br />So it makes me wonder. There probably aren't that many people nowadays with my experience growing up - when I was growing up, people would react to learning of our not having TV like I've grown a second head. It's perhaps actually more common and accepted now than it was then - but it's because people just watch stuff on their computers and phones these days. So there probably are <em>very few</em> people who, like me, grew up with the occasional TV experience at family and friends and the occasional conema outing, and otherwise buried in <em>books</em>. <br /><br />It's not like I had not read my share of stupid children's books, either.<br /><br />But the indisputable fact is that a book works differently from a film, and that I encountered many of these stories as books first so my perception of them is coloured that way. I share some of the same defining fiction moments with people of my generation but at the same time I don't. The people commenting at the YouTube videos will have memories of the songs and action, and are suddenly realising the character arcs years later, and I have memories of the character arcs and am only now discovering the songs and the action. And it's a bit weird sometimes.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=18836" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:18548Found Family2021-01-23T16:52:08Z2021-01-23T17:56:49Zcontemplativepublic0 I've just had a lightbulb moment of realising that maybe one of the reasons I'm so into Found Family elements in stories is because it happened in my own family.<br /><br />I grew up with mom's stories of Grandma Š. who was a bit of a touchstone - and anecdote - for old-fashioned femininity in the stories of my childhood. Grandma Š. was the one with ideas of how a proper lady behaved. We have vintage linens from Grandma Š. that have that quality of really proper vintage linens. (Finding a duvet cover with the respective initials in my stack of old torn linens to possibly turn into costumes is what jumpstarted this train of thought and I suddenly realize that duvet cover may be getting close to around 80 or 90 years old... and is still of better quality than many a newer one.) Grandma Š. was the one wearing old-fashioned underwear that years later my mom would tell me about to paint a picture of the past. I have a vague suspicion that some of the antique sewing supplies I got from my grandma originally came from Grandma Š.<br /><br />Over the years, I gradually pieced together the story of my Great-Grandma Š. who, it turns out, was not a blood relative at all.<br /><br />The bare bones of the story are roughly this:<br /><br />Mrs Š. lost her daughter when her daughter was about twenty and about to get married.<br /><br />My grandma lost her mother when she was young.<br /><br />Years later, when Mrs Š. was a lonely old lady with a fairly large house with a garden she had no one to bequeath to, and she was getting frail, there was (I think in the same church?) this young motherless girl just getting married who didn't really yet have any proper place to live and to raise the family she wanted. So Mrs Š. had a proposal: The young couple could move in with her, and take care of her in her waning days, and they could keep the house and basically become Mrs Š.'s sole beneficiaries. And Mrs Š. would spend her last days with a young family instead of lonely.<br /><br />Her last days turned out to be quite a number of years, and it's not difficult to imagine having young people and children around her had something to do with that. (Also, my grandma was a nurse - well, pediatric nurse, but still a nurse - and my grandpa was a dental technician so Mrs Š. was definitely a clever old lady.)<br /><br />It's a rather weird arrangement on one hand, but on the other hand that's how my mom grew up with two grandmas after all.<br /><br />It's one of those things that are par for the course for you when you're a child and that only slowly sink in as you grow up.<br /><br />So... yeah. I guess I'm into Found Family and Mandalorian concepts of family and I am writing that odd but very real family arrangement Frank and Methos and my OC Ondra have because... to me, it's par for the course to have a Great-Grandma who wasn't a blood relative and to thus have heirlooms from someone who wasn't a blood relative so... duh.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=18548" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:17829Just came back from grandma2020-12-26T19:44:04Z2020-12-26T20:41:13Zsatisfiedpublic0This is kind of another of those random posts.<br /><br />It's a more subdued Christmas than usual - we did not even bother with Christmas decorations. But we did manage a family gathering, possibly slightly defying the current guidelines I have to admit, and seeing grandma after a year, especially after a health scare this autumn, was so nice.<br /><br />(The grandma who used to visit every week when I was a child, the grandma we visit every Christmas, the grandma who would take me to exhibitions and galleries and who would go with us to the Prague Zoo. She had to undergo a cancer check. It was OK, and the doctor even told her she's in great shape for her age. But for a while there, we were all so very anxious. In my case, it was going numb, not allowing myself to think about it, and sleeping really badly; and then it hit with full force of relief when she turned out to be okay.)<br /><br />Christmas! I've gone hobbity in the past couple of years: I often enjoy the giving more than the receiving, in a way. Although I still get excited about my gifts.<br /><br />This Christmas was very handmade and scrounged up on my side (but then, with me it's almost always handmade). Besides, we've started often giving one another perishable gifts; we've all got so much stuff already it's actually nice to get something nice to eat or something practical we need. Grandma asked for a facemask; I ended up making her two. And two wooden sheep figurines I bought at the Liptál folklore festival last year (I did not go this year, although it did take place), because stuff to put in her glass cupboards, often animal figures, is stuff she still welcomes. And a patchwork pillowcase for my sister & brother-in-law (and a wooden spatula, also from the Liptál festival - they like cooking, and there's a man always selling them at the festival who makes fantastic handmade ones that are <em>much</em> nicer to use than the mass-produced ones). <em>They</em> gave me a jar of bio-quality blueberry jam. I let out a squeak. Heh. My family knows me well.<br /><br />For the past couple of years, though, I've been asking father for various books from abroad, which kills two birds with one stone, so to speak - I get my dream books and he does not have to reck his head for gift ideas.<br /><br />Sooo. This year I asked for and got <a href="http://theschoolofhistoricaldress.org.uk/?page_id=465">Patterns of Fashion 5</a>.<br /><br />Yess.<br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://marmota-b.dreamwidth.org/17829.html#cutid1">writerly thoughts</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />I hope you're all safe and reasonably happy, too. :-)<br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=17829" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:16130Life a second lockdown2020-10-22T20:18:42Z2020-10-22T20:18:42Zrelaxedpublic0The situation in Czechia is quickly getting bad. In large part, it's clear now, because the government is flailing and has no clear plan and has never had a clear plan. (One rather wishes to live in, say, New Zealand right now...)<br /><br />We got lucky so far by, paradoxically, falling ill. We have some sort of nasty bug that mostly leaves us tired, and with raised temperatures, and maybe a little bit of coughing, but isn't Covid-19 (I just received my result today). Meanwhile, at work, someone does have Covid already, my boss told me when I last called in, and next week the whole place is closed. So... I may well have gotten lucky by staying at home with another virus.<br /><br />I'm kind of enjoying it now, now that I'm no longer permanently tired. I finally have time for craft projects I did not have much time for for most of the year. (I did have time for them in spring but got stuck with father away from them.) We've also just received an order of local farmer and organic groceries... so I'm gonna have fun cooking the next couple of days. I feel far more myself when I can be creative. I'm working on what will be meat-and-mushrooms mini-pies right now. This may or may not be an idea inspired by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamflower">Dreamflower</a>'s Hobbit fanfics.<br /><br />(It was inspired by a cookbook, but those fanfics - and, to be fair, the Townsends YouTube channel - are absolutely responsible for me going "I want to do this." )<br /><br />I also discovered ambience videos on YouTube. It turns out listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QboT-MDGuk">the sounds of crackling fire</a> (great for knitting), or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6cHbBA-zMI&t=5611s">birds and sea</a>, really is nice if you're stuck in a flat with the sounds of the upstairs neighbours' TV and other background noise you did not choose.<br /><br />Or, you know, you could watch wildlife videos:<br /><br /><br /><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rYizfSIhZwQ" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Ventures into nature are allowed, though, and we're now newly living in a place where nature is just two blocks away (that also totally was one of our main parameters when choosing the place in the first place, after the experience from spring). So... depending on how I feel and what my doctor says over the phone tomorrow, I think I'll make use of that. Fresh air does seem to help.<br /><br />I'm not sure how to end this post appropriately. Keep us in your thoughts, I guess? And I hope you're all fine.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=16130" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:15475... I have no title for this2020-09-17T20:12:27Z2020-09-17T20:12:27Zpublic2As we all surely know the NFE is live now. I don't have much to say about it at this juncture yet except A) my gift is fabulous!; B) <em>TWO</em> Star Wars crossovers?!<br /><br /><br /><br />Somehow, what I wanted to share instead, in that late-evening manner this blog suffers from, is this:<br /><br />I have memories of a song playing on the PA system in my hometown in my childhood.<br /><br />I don't remember the song.<br />I remember how it was sunny, and how that song somehow slotted into the atmosphere.<br /><br />And I know it was not this song - it cannot have been simply because it's <em>recent</em> - but at the same time, it <em>is</em> that song. Somehow.<br /><br />It's my father's favourite band. (As in, he went to see them live, in Latvia, favourite.) He listened to it a lot this spring, when we were cooped up together in lockdown, and it was sunny outside.<br /><br />There was a meme a friend shared on Facebook recently - about the songs we listened to on repeat when we thought our world was ending.<br /><br />This isn't the song I listened to when I thought my world was ending. This is the song reminding me that it isn't.<br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YK-nWjCYXPQ" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />Which is why I wanted to share it with you.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=15475" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:15235*headdesk*2020-09-03T18:21:16Z2020-09-04T20:48:02Zcrankypublic0So, in the last post I mentioned a move that threw up more complications that it should have...<br /><br />It started with the internet. The WiFi password we were given did not work, the previous occupant did not know the name of the WiFi, and to top it off it turned out it cannot be smoothly re-written onto us because it was in the name of a girlfriend of his he broke up with non-amicably over a year ago.<br /><br />And the modem is only fitted for one cable so we've been rationing out internet time between ourselves. That part, at least, should hopefully be solved next week because father is a pack rat where electronics are concerned (or really in general, come to think of it...), so he has an old switch of his we can use.<br /><br />We also found out the gas stove is so dirty (it really is, ugh) and / or old it smells of gas, so we're currently not using it (thankfully we have this sort of pot electrical cooker that my sister bought earlier this year, so that has been a lifesaver). The oven (electrical) is <em>also</em> dirty with what appears to be years and years worth of grime, although at least I managed to clean <em>that</em> to a state where it doesn't stink when in use...<br /><br />Then there were complications with the washing machine, although thankfully father solved that.<br /><br />And other things I won't bore you with.<br /><br />The last straw: less than an hour ago (and not that long after a fairly upbeat call to mom where I told her the nice things about my new job), the downstairs neighbour, an elderly lady who conveniently (not) turns out to be hard of hearing, came at us that something in our flat has to be leaking because she has a spot on her ceiling.<br /><br />Nothing visible in our flat is leaking. That would be too simple, and of course we would have noticed that. No, there's apparently a problem in the tub's outlet, in a place that's basically impossible to get to without taking the (tiny) bathroom apart.<br /><br />My sister's at the end of her tether. Or more like well over it. She was supposed to have vacation time (which is always hard to get to begin with for her as a freelance translator). She hasn't had a good vacation in <em>years</em>, because something always goes wrong.<br /><br />She's now on the phone to mom. What a day.<br /><br />Me, I'm just starting in a new job, after six months jobless and a move, and really did not need to be dealing with something like that, either. (Although at least if it's a big repair, it's up to the owner. BUT if it turns out to be a big repair, it means life without a bathroom and loss of privacy. It basically means life without shower and bath and again without washing machine because it runs into the bath, right now anyway. AAARGH. I badly need to wash my - long - hair right now. The sink is tiny...)<br /><br />*headdesk*<br /><br />Just about the only good things about this mess:<br />1) Realising how much I'm actually a decent and responsible adulting person who would not and <em>did not</em> leave a flat in such a state, despite my many other failings, thank you very much.<br />2) The people in my new job are nice so far, and the job is just as interesting to me as I hoped it would be.<br />3) The town is full of nice shops, as we keep discovering. Next month, a packet-less / bulk shop should be opening. That's a little thing to look forward to.<br /><br />But...<br /><br />*headdesk*<br /><br />P.S. The NFE story is still somehow happening, at least.<br /><br /><br />UPDATE: Not as bad as it sounded last night! The neighbour lady made it sound a lot worse than it actually was because she'd been flooded out before, and she panicked; in reality it's apparently just moisture spotting, so the problems were caught before they turned into actual problems, and it was stuff the owner-lady's husband could (fingers crossed!) solve on his own during one evening visit today.<br /><br />It was the washing machine, in the end. Specifically, the hose was not fitted onto the water spout tight enough. Also, the sink outlet was slowly starting to leak and needed cleaning, tightening, and a new rubber sealing. We did not notice the leak because (small bathroom) there was a shelf hiding it, and a crack in the tiling very unfortunately siphoning some of the water off into neighbour-lady's ceiling...<br />Crack shall be sealed next week and future disasters hopefully averted.<br />Nothing in the bath after all! Which is a huge relief because phew, the prospect of being water-less or reliant on sponge baths in the kitchen sink was a pretty terrifying one last night.<br /><br />It was my sister dealing with neighbour lady during the day today; and she said it turns out that when neighbour lady isn't quite as panicked she's apparently quite a nice neighbour to have, so hopefully our future interactions will be less fraught with potential plumbing disasters. :-)<br /><br />And my sister's off to her vacation in a remote and lovely area of the country on Sunday. So hopefully all's well that ends well!<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=15235" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:14436Thoughts on Paterson (2016), my father and Pan Tadeusz (the latter sneaked in)2020-07-04T21:34:11Z2020-07-04T21:35:52Zcontemplativepublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">So I finally watched Paterson today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Father’s been praising and quoting it at me for several years (he watched it with friends from church – I think maybe during one of their monthly film evenings), and several of my friends have praised it on Facebook. I downloaded / purchased it in March at the beginning of lockdown but didn’t find the time <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">and</i> peace of mind for it until now.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">I loved it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">But also I then read <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/paterson-2016">the review at Roger Ebert</a>, and the comments, and can’t help thinking...<br /><br />...<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Father said it’s much more like a European film than an American one.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Father can, on the whole, be a bit overwhelming; Father has Opinions (I kind of write my Frank Castle like him, in that and a couple other respects, although there’s also a lot they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">don’t</i> have in common), and he can give you what I call his fifteen-minute lectures on just about any subject, often without you asking.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">And somewhat annoyingly, he is often right.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">But sometimes he has these more subdued moments of insight when we connect over something unexpectedly, or he off-handedly says something that shifts my perception of something. (Like that one time he gave me a blow-by blow account, the way he often needs to share as he gets excited about a topic, as he came across a Wikipedia mention of the Fridrich method of speedcubing, found out about Jessica Fridrich through that, read up on her, and then matter-of-factly corrected the Czech title of the Fridrich method in a Wikipedia article to female gender - because it does enter into it grammatically in Czech - and matter-of-factly summed up his edit as "Jessica Fridrich is a woman." Jessica Fridrich is a trans woman. We've never discussed those issues. After that, I don't think we have to.)<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">He also claims – and is mostly right – that he doesn’t really “get” literature and art. But he still enjoys a lot of art, much the same way he enjoys wine – i. e. not because it’s somehow sophisticated but simply because it’s enjoyable and interesting? And he still has insights.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Like that one time he read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Pan Tadeusz</i> (one of my favourite books) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">immediately</i> twigged onto the fact Mickiewicz rather mocks the character of Telimena, unjustly. Which it had taken me several readings to realise. So we’ve had an interesting conversation about Telimena and how she doesn’t conform to the worldview of the people around her (she comes from small Polish / Lithuanian nobility but is more of a cosmopolitan character herself, which was a Bad Thing in the age of Polish fight for independence) but is still essentially not doing anything wrong and for one thing definitely is doing her best for Zosia, her ward... (and the way that genuinely loving relationship in the book was downplayed in the Andrzej Wajda film is one of my few complaints about it...)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">... well. Now that I’ve digressed that way: you should read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Pan Tadeuz</i>. Don’t let the facts it’s Polish Romanticism, and a novel-length poem, and a dramatic story from the time of the Napoleonic wars and Polish struggle for independence, and that it has feuding families in it, fool you. It’s surprisingly... Austenian? Surprisingly concerned with people’s innocent foibles and idiosyncracies, and oftentimes rather tongue in cheek, for one thing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Father also immediately twigged onto the fact Mickiewicz sometimes uses rhyme to subtly laugh at his self-important characters, which I also didn’t fully realise until he pointed it out. I’m not sure how well that carries into translations, though, I have and can read the original... (I kind of have a passive understanding of written Polish.) I do like Mickiewicz best when he does his subtle sarcasm, rather than when he’s being 100% Romantic. There is, for example, also an ongoing argument two minor nobles are having about which of their two greyhounds is better... which after several repeats finally ends with the solution that neither of them is very good.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">I’ve also concluded that the book is basically Romanticism for Hufflepuffs – with the things that make Romanticism seem intriguing on paper, without most of the things that make it actually annoying in practice. With a lot of focus on family and love for one’s country, and with mushroom picking and vegetable gardens and coffee brewing and stuff. And it ends with the young couple deciding to free their serfs and do their own housework because if they’re fighting for Polish freedom it should be freedom for everyone. As a Hufflepuff, what’s not to love?<br /><br />...<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Anyway. Paterson.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">So father said Paterson was pretty European for an American film, and praised it for not having that much of a story and consisting largely of individual repetitive yet slightly different scenes...</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Which is precisely the thing many commenters seem to dislike about it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">And I think somewhere in there lies the point. Some commenters were apparently feeling let down and disappointed because they could not suss out much of a meaning, and considered what they did suss out too trite to justify a 2-hour film. Others are trying hard to find some symbolism in individual motifs...</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile father simply enjoyed it as it came, as the layered slice of life it is. Which, I think, may very well indeed be the “meaning” of it. It is perhaps far too simple; but if the number of commenters dissatisfied with that simple answer and unable to just enjoy it is anything to go by...</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">It probably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">is</i> something worth saying and showing every now and then. Sometimes the simplest answers are the hardest to grasp.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">And also it totally is one of my jams. And my praise of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Pan Tadeusz</i> has more to do with that than it originally seemed; Pan Tadeusz is in large part Mickiewicz looking back at his impetuous ideals-filled youth and realising he should have enjoyed the simple joys of everyday life in his home country more.<br /><br />Which circles back to one of my insightful conversations with father, that one about Ecclesiastes.<br /><br />...<br /><br />That was Marmota's rambling musings post of the day.<br /></span></p> <br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=14436" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:14145I'm stuck at my father's but okay2020-03-16T11:00:22Z2020-03-16T11:00:22Zcalmpublic0Well, I do have a cold, but it appears to be just your regular little seasonal cold - including a little bit of a runny nose and stuff in my throat.<br /><br />The most annoying part of it all right now is that I'm stuck away from my sewing machine and my nicest fabrics and most of my sewing patterns and <em>all</em> of my sewing books including the four fabulous new historical clothing ones I got last year and this year. :-(<br />I do have my handsewing with me, though, and two handsewing projects that need doing anyway, and there's all of the old fabrics I haven't gotten around to moving or using or getting rid of yet, so no shortage of sewing opportunities anyway. (Probably starting with face masks.)<br /><br />Plus I have my laptop.<br /><br />So I suspect sooner or later my poor neglected stories will be updated. :D<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=14145" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:13343Randomness2019-09-07T20:57:57Z2019-09-07T20:57:57Zpublic0A while back I noticed @rthstewart had granted me access and I never granted access to her, which reminded me that what with my very irregular Dramwidth posting, I had completely forgotten how you do <em>that</em>. I've found it now, and granted access to the several fanfiction friends / acquaintances I keep in irregular touch with here. I'm not a very lively Dreamwidth user, but seeing as keeping in touch with those people is one of my reasons for having a Dreamwidth journal in the first place, that needed rectifying.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />Big cleaning and room organising is underway. Kind of slowly, but underway. My room is a mess. One of the biggest reasons my room is a mess (aside from my general messiness) is that I have <em>so many categories of things</em>, which makes putting them away neatly a problem.<br /><br />Also, loads and loads of books to read. That's what happens when the absolute majority of people in your town use the "free exchange library bookcase" in the town square primarily to dump old books.<br /><br />Several years ago, I looked at pictures of <a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/take-a-peek-inside-neil-gaimans-library-5352953">Neil Gaiman's library</a> and thought "How does he have so many books?!" and then looked around myself and thought "Well, he's older than me."<br /><br />That was before the bookcase in the town square.<br /><br />I'm definitely getting there.<br /><br />It's kind of amazing and often puzzling to see what sort of book treasures people are getting rid of; there are a lot of old Communist-era books no one will ever be tempted to read again, but also a lot of stuff that was published around the same time but will always hold up. And new books, too. I even saw a copy of American Gods in English there once (but I already have that one; why couldn't it have been, say, <em>Neverwhere</em>?). Lots of books I used to borrow from the library as a child, and now I'm finally getting my own copies. So many copies of Emil and the Detectives / Emil and the Three Twins by Erich Kästner we've already given it to all the children in the family who are the right age.<br /><br />Possibly the biggest treasure thus gained, though, is a cookbook - a 1940s cookbook (it already was an xth edition then, not sure when it was first published) that's kind of a touchstone of Czech cuisine and I don't know anyone who'd willingly part with theirs (which can make obtaining your own copy a bit of a problem). I can only assume that whoever had put it there had inherited it from someone and already had their own copy. Or didn't cook and had no idea what they had on their hands.<div style="text-align: center;"><br />* * *</div><br />Speaking of food, in August I decided the tastiest thing in the world was a quark frgál.<br /><br />Frgál is a Moravian Wallachian take on koláč. Large thin pastry - large and thin like pizza, but much richer than pizza pastry. And then something tasty and sweet on top.<br /><br />I was at the folklore festival in Liptál, and bought a whole one, both for myself and to bring back home to my sister. And I have no idea how they do it, aside from definitely not skimping on ingredients, but it's <em>delicious</em>. Quark can get a bit dry in baking, even though it's always mixed with other things; but <em>they</em> must put even more other tasty things in the filling because words fail me for how delicious that frgál was.<br /><br />So, as I said, in August I decided it was the tastiest thing in the world.<br /><br />I had forgotten how much I love blueberries, and how delicious blueberries with sugar and cream are. Which is what I had today.<div style="text-align: center;"><br />* * *</div><br />But I have a general fondness for Wallachian cooking. The sauerkraut soup, kyselica, is another thing I never want to miss when visiting Wallachia. And while I am definitely not a hard licquor kind of girl and <em>don'</em>t go to Wallachia to drink slivovice... I have to admit that from among the hard licquors, a good plummy slivovice isn't the most unpalatable thing in the world. Just, you know, I'm really <em>not</em> a hard licquor person... I'm also not a beer person (so when it comes to writing Methos and all the boundaries it pushes for me as a writer, that's definitely one thing I'll never write from first-hand experience). I live in South Moravia now; as far as alcohol goes, that's the best place for me to be.<div style="text-align: center;"><br />* * *</div><br />Seriously, though. If you want to make me happy, food-wise, give me blueberries / bilberries. I can never tire of those. I can tire of the things you mix them with, but not the berries.<br /><br />My Narnian forests are definitely full of them.<br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=13343" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:11984So I took the Pottermore tests...2019-06-20T04:31:30Z2019-06-20T04:31:30Zamusedpublic0My eldest sister is a much bigger Harry Potter fan than me, in spite of it being me who was the perfect age for the books when they started being published here, and me being the one who brought them to my family's attention (thanks to an art teacher who read the first book to us at art school). She basically has the audiobooks on loop, and keeps comparing lots of Real Life to the books, and all that.<br /><br />So she took the Pottermore tests much earlier than me. Twice, with very different results, because she forgot her login.<br /><br />When I finally got around to it, she was eager to discuss the tests with me (well, so was I). As we were recalling the questions, she remembered the one that asks you "which of these boxes would you open".<br /><br /><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><em>Me:</em> The one where a small creature was squeaking! I had to open that one, it would suffocate!<br /><em>Her, with slight dismay over herself:</em> I didn't even think of that.</div><div><br />Which is probably why she's a Gryffindorish Ravenclaw and I'm definitely a Hufflepuff. (I was mildly offended at the Slytherin & Gryffindor options being so obvious. Then I came to this option and didn't even get to the Ravenclaw one I clicked so fast.)<br /><br />She decided that the Czech Ornithological Society, which she is a member of, is probably more of a Ravenclawish undertaking, anyway.<br /> </div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=11984" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:8882Mother's Day2016-05-08T19:57:11Z2016-05-08T19:57:11Zthankfulpublic1On account of it's being Mother's Day, I've realised that I haven't posted anything about my mother here yet, which is a serious oversight.<br /><br />Since I'm being rather picky in what I post on this blog, these reminiscences are also picky, but, well...<br /><br />Me & mom are very different personalities, and she told me once, recently, that she had had absolutely no idea what to think of and do with my little imaginative self; that one year, when I was about three, there she was with tiny me walking next to her talking about something imaginary and being a complete stranger to her. But I think she did a pretty good job for a clueless person. ;-)<br /><br />For one thing, mother was indeed the person I came to with my very first creative efforts: I asked her to draw my imaginary animals for me, and clueless or not, she did a splendid job before I could do for myself. The first one, apparently, I asked for at that age of three or four much in the same manner the Little Prince asked for his sheep; except mine wasn't an existing species and wasn't in a box. (<em>The Little Prince</em> is, incidentally, one of my mom's favourite books.)<br /><br />She is the person responsible for the first Ransome book entering this household, and while I'm not entirely certain, I think also for the Narnia books. (She certainly gave me some of mine, the ones I got next after my older sisters' original concession of leaving <em>Prince Caspian</em> to me because there was an odd number of them.)<br />The first Ransome book to enter this household was <em>The Coot Club</em>. There is a Czech publishing house specialising in children's books, and each half-year or so, it would send catalogues of its new books to schools, where the children would order books through the school. Our parents were always quite supportive of this venture, so I think every time, each of us could pick up to three books or so? I do remember usually carrying more books home on the day the order arrived than most of my classmates did. Anyway, one time, there was <em>The Coot Club</em> in the offer, and mom convinced one of my older sisters that it was worth ordering. And she was right, of course. :-)<br /><br />This goes hand in hand with mom later convincing us to listen to a radio programme for children when <em>The Coot Club</em> was on as a serial. We had tried listening to the programme before and pretty much hated it, but it turned out each week in the month was under the direction of someone else, and there was this man whose direction we loved; he had conversations with travellers and natural scientists and writers and all sorts of interesting people, and played music we liked, and adapted books we liked for radio plays (through which means we also discovered other books we liked). You never felt like he was talking down to you or talking about things adults think children will like: he simply talked about things <em>he</em> liked. (Heh, hello, Lewis' priceless thoughts on these matters.) So that was another huge, formative thing we can be thankful to mom for.<br /><br />Every now and then, she has this curious ability of digging up or stumbling upon something that's just what I needed and didn't know I needed it. One year, she sent me off (with my agreement) to a weekend children's trip organised by her employer, which sounds potentially awful and was actually awesome. The person organising it was another such enthusiast who was good with children because he did what he enjoyed, and I went with them at least three more times, visiting beautiful places around this country I never would have otherwise learned of, and taking my friends with me a couple of times, too.<br /><br />Mom read books to us in the evenings, and sang traditional folk songs to us, and cut Christmas cookies with us, and did other such wonderful and traditional mom things when we were little.<br /><br />She likes flowers and gardening, so in a roundabout way (by planting them in the first place), she's responsible for my love of phloxes, the scent of which will forever be the scent of my childhood summers.<br /><br />And she's the talkative one in the family, the one who'll strike up conversations with strangers; which is how I met my best friend at the age of three. That friend whom, these days, I won't see for months and when we meet again, we'll talk like only days or weeks have passed. How that happened I don't know, but obviously, I would not be that lucky without mom being a lot more outgoing than I am.<br /><br />Her birthday's next week; sometimes, it would fall on Mother's Day, which, in a childhood logic, was only natural.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=8882" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:7248Wine conversations with Father2015-12-20T11:53:21Z2015-12-20T11:53:21Zamusedpublic6Disclaimer: This duo has a fairly cavalier approach to wines. Which is definitely not the same as a connoisseur approach to wines.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />I made pasta with bacon and tomatoes for lunch / dinner / you-know-the-main-meal-of-the-day-that-Czechs-have-at-noon.<br /><br />Father <em>(considering)</em>: There's a Müller opened... and a Neuburger unopened, but I'm saving that. Two Neuburgers.<br />Me: I think I'll really have the Müller.<br /><em>(= Müller Thurgau, a dry white)</em><br />Father: It's Hungarian.<br />Me: It's Hungarian, but bottled in Velké Pavlovice. (...) You stopped it with a stopper from port!<br />Father: I couldn't push the cork back in, and the stopper from the port was just lying at hand.<br />Me: It doesn't even bother to say what it goes with...<br />Father <em>(with conviction)</em>: Müller goes with everything.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />Earlier this month:<br />Father <em>(speaking of a Wikipedia article he'd already come across much earlier)</em>: Neuburger is... <em>(blah, blah)</em>, the vine was fished out of the Danube in the 1860s. The centre of growing is in Austria, area of 652 ha. It is also grown in <em>(blah, blah)</em> and the Czech Republic, area of 795 ha...<br />Me <em>(bursting out laughing)</em>: The centre of growing is the Czech Republic!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />The lowdown: The varieties / types of wine most likely to be bought by Father are Riesling, Tokaji Furmint, Neuburger, and Müller Thurgau, probably in that order (except that Neuburger would be, without a shadow of doubt, bought much more often if it could much more often be stumbled upon). And port. With the exception of the latter and the very occasional South African red, it's all whites from Central Europe, leaning heavily towards the dry end of the spectrum.<br />I pretty much agree with that choice, although I also share my mother's taste for Sauvignon.<br />Basically, give me a dry or semi-dry white, please, and by all means, make it Central European.<br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=7248" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:6773What hits a nerve. And some unrelated wild cuteness and good news.2015-12-07T22:36:48Z2015-12-07T22:36:48Zaggravatedpublic0<p>To my readers: you don't really have to read this, I guess, it's a bit of an anthill into mountains; I just needed to get this out of the system, because it's hit a nerve on some basic level in ways that surprised me, it's late in the evening, I have no one to share with at the moment and I don't want to end the day with it rattling about in my head.</p><p>If you're inclined to self-assessment, though, I guess it could be interesting.</p><p>If you don't want to, just jump straight to the cuteness. If I've figured this cut thing out correctly.</p><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://marmota-b.dreamwidth.org/6773.html#cutid1">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><p> </p><p> </p><p>And because I did say I didn't want to end the day on that note, let's end it on <a href="http://www.radio.cz/en/section/news/first-wild-exmoor-pony-born-in-czech-republic--1">this</a>: the first <a href="http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/regiony/1606371-v-ceske-prirode-se-po-staletich-narodilo-divoke-hribe">baby wild horse</a> born in the Czech lands (ha!) in centuries. (Okay, technically an Exmooor pony. Which apparently recent research indicates is as close to the original wild horse as it gets.)</p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=6773" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:5969Isn't it beautiful? (various reminisces and stuff going on)2015-11-04T17:10:51Z2015-11-04T17:16:51Zcontemplativepublic2Some days ago, my father bought a mocca pot, obstinately ignored the instructions to wash it thoroughly and cook several cups of coffee in it without drinking first ("what a waste"), and then very happily pronounced the resulting coffee as tasting exactly the way it used to. The part that boggles me is that I agree with him.<br />We never had one in all my memory, and neither had anyone I know. And besides, I started drinking coffee only a few years ago and still don't do that often.<br />The only explanation I have is that grandma has always had this percolator thing or whatever - I'm really confused about all the manners in which coffee can be prepared and the translation - which father says is basically the same thing with different anatomy (not in those words, those are mine); and I may have occasionally tasted it as a child to see if I still hated it.<br />I don't hate it anymore. I actually approach it like a treat. I'm slightly puzzled by that, too.<br /><br />But I'm still enjoying the Yorkshire Tea - that father used to bring from Britain years ago and now ordered online - much more. Much more often. We both have a thing for "common black tea", my father and me - that's what he calls it, with carefully put on British pronunciation. How I loved its blackness when he first brought it; back then, the choice of teas in Czech shops was very dismal indeed. It's got better (even the awful awful cheap Czech brand of tea has got <em>slightly</em> better since it's not Czech anymore, I think; in this particular case, being bought off by an international concern was not a bad thing, because the concern is Indian). But Yorkshire Tea is still a class unto itself which I love with all the calm fierceness I imagine English people might love their tea.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br />* * *</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I wonder what my various not-Czech online acquaintances would think of the relish with which I devour bread with lard, salt and fresh onion these days, another blast from the past. (It started a few days ago with the need to consume vitamins in this autumnal time and being left with onions in the house, but by now it's just an excuse.) The trick is, it has to be processed lard, not that sticky soapy pressed stuff. And Czech or similar bread; it would not work with white bread or bread that is somewhat too sweet in taste.<br />Years ago, a visiting Irish vegetarian man was horrified by the relish with which I ate a similar combination in a pub. I'm not sure what horrified him more, the fact that it was blatantly meat-based, or the blatant amount of fat a young slip of a girl like me was eating without concern. With fresh onion.<br /> </div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *<br /> </div>I'm sewing a corset. It's my first properly boned Victorian-ish corset (corded Regency stays don't count in this context); I'm making it for my sister, and, partially due to my lack of experience, it's taking far too long. Also, grommets setting is proving highly unpredictable for me, and tiresome. I've made myself a tiny callus on my right thumb. Thank goodness for thimbles.<br />I have to keep mom updated on the progress, because she bought the materials as a gift for my sister. It's a roundabout gift and repayment in my family; my sister recently gave me money for a theatre performance as payment for the corset. I went to see one of the Cimrman plays with a cousin, who goes to their plays very, very often and this time she suddenly found herself with a spare ticket.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm in the handsewing finishing stage, and I'd started (re-)reading <em>Night Watch</em> by Terry Pratchett, and was bemoaning the impossibility of sewing and reading at the same time. Because that would be the perfect thing to keep me going.<br />The obvious answer is, of course, audiobooks. There does not seem to have been a Czech audiobook of <em>Night Watch</em> published yet, but I found an amateur reading on a file-sharing site. The reader's doing voices and everything. It took me a while to get used to the voices and emphases being different than I imagined, but goodness it's good for an amateur job. Death's voice is run through an echo effect and it's perfect. It's so good they should just recruit the reader and make it official.<br />He's done <em>Guards! Guards!</em> and <em>Wyrd Sisters</em> as well; I think for a while, my reading vs sewing dilemma is solved neatly.<br /><br />(I wonder how it works when I do have those books, just not in audio form. Okay, and <em>Guards! Guards!</em> is just barely glued back into book form by now.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />My father came to my room to share the excitement over the Latvian writing he's found on batteries he bought earlier today:<br />"'Nemest uguni.' Isn't it beautiful?"<br />I agreed that it was, and he left to look up the case of "uguns" used in a Latvian grammar.<br /><br />It <em>is</em> beautiful, in an ordinary beautiful language way.<br /><br />(It means "Do not throw into a fire." The case seems to be mixed up. Father still doesn't realise just how good with language he is.)<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=5969" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:4125Amateur folklore ensembles vs weather vs me: 2 : 1 : 02015-07-25T18:30:26Z2015-07-25T18:30:26ZIļģi, because!tiredpublic4Summer weather + standing around for over five hours = tiiiiired.<br />Summer weather + walking around Prague + dancing = fun, let's go see more of Prague! (The impression my sister gives of her Latvians.)<br /><br />I'll post more when I sort through the photos. They very kindly posed for me for photos of all the female costumes, plus of course I took lots of other photos of other ensembles as well. (I love Latvian folk costumes. And folk costumes from the general Baltic area. Compared to costumes from areas like France, you can really see how they would have been made at home.) <br /><br />I don't have any videos, because my camera tends to turn itself off after less than a minute when I take videos...<br /><br />So an old one. This song's very popular with Latvian folklore dance ensembles; the lyrics are traditional, the melody and arrangement are by the Latvian music group Iļģi.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JbOQkJUSbXE"></iframe><br /><br />Heh. Really, <em>really</em> popular.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mKGi9lg7gqM"></iframe><br /><br />(That's from Dzeismu svétki, the Festival of Songs, a tradition since the 1870s. I guess this goes a long way towards explaining why this particular choreography seems so widespread.)<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=4125" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:4052I'm stuck at home2015-07-22T16:55:39Z2015-07-25T08:16:16Zlazypublic4I'm rather glad to be, because it's hot outside. 18:45 PM, and it's still 33 degrees Celsius. In the shade. The cats have been playing dead all day. A <em>little</em> bit of a wind has just picked up, so I guess I'll venture outside and finally hang the laundry.<br /><br />Czech Republic is suffering from droughts.<br /><br />My sister had to leave the house through the window, because our metal entrance door (to the garden) expanded so much in the heat we flat out could not open it. While it does tend to expand in the summer, I don't think <em>that</em>'s ever happened before.<br /><br />She needed to go to Prague because she'll be playing guide to a Latvian folklore dance group in the days to come. I have to stay in, because I can't leave and leave the window open, obviously. I hope it'll get better in the days to come, because there's that upcoming folklore festival and I really would like to go there!<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=4052" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2015-03-04:2384640:3021Remix Madness, take 12015-06-28T09:04:09Z2015-06-28T17:19:04Zcontemplativepublic5Take 1 as in, my initial thoughts on it. :-)<br /><br />I've made three claims; two stories down, one to go.<br /><br />Someone made a claim on my prompt overnight - yes, indeed, I've been sitting like a stupid watchdog on it. The claim's made me giddily happy, even though there's no story yet. <br /><br />The whole exercise, especially thinking about a "safe story" for the prompt, has also made me realise that in the recent months (not sure how long), I've adopted a much more cavalier attitude towards my creations than I'd had for the rest of my life before.<br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://marmota-b.dreamwidth.org/3021.html#cutid1">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><br />So now that I was looking at my stories, I realised I did not feel all that attached to any of them to prevent them from being remixed. I guess this means, if I ever publish any original work, I may be less bothered by fandom. :D<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=marmota_b&ditemid=3021" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments