Apple changed the way it categorizes its podcasts. Instead of audio fiction/audio drama being buried in "personal journals" or "performing arts," it now has a category, Fiction. It even has subcategories: Fiction>Drama, Fiction>Sci-Fi or Fiction> Comedy. 

WELL, LOOKIE HERE:

At 5:53 pm on August 21, 2019, Jarnsaxa Rising is 58 out of 60 on the Fiction>Drama chart for Apple Podcasts. 

I know it's highly subjective, but after not being visible among my peers for so long, this is flippin' HUGE. 

Here's another thing that's cuckoo-bananas. Last week we were the #3 podcast in Fiction in South Korea. 

Hey rone ​​​​: Did you ever get your f(x)tec Pro1? If so, how do you like it?

Here are some random links I have saved for things I found cool or interesting:

1) Sean Ono Lennon's band, GOASTT, and their song "Animals." The video is also mesmerizing. It is clear that he is the son of two brilliant artists. If anyone's gonna have an unlimited bankroll to create art, I'm happy it's him. (GOASTT stands for "Ghost of the Saber-toothed tiger.) NSFW (bewbs).

2) Lizzo's Tiny Desk Concert. She has an impressively filthy mouth, but she makes it so endearing. And holy craaaaap does she have chops! She is unfathomably cute and quick-witted, and so comfy being in the spotlight. NSFW (language).

3) If you don't have time for the Tiny Desk Concert above, enjoy Lizzo's hilarious 3-minute parody of Anchorman. She's such a star, and her comic timing is perfecto. (I love the idiots in the comments saying "Um, she's not playing the flute here." No, really? She's not actually playing the flute when it has flames shooting out of it? You think that might be lipsynced? Thanks, Mozart.)  NSFW (language).

4) The "Satisficing" subreddit, containing gifs and videos of cake and cookie icing and piping... so soothing, so magical. It's visual xanax. 

5) The New Voice Studio run by Lisa Paglin and Marianna Brilla. I would give a kidney to study there with them... good GAWD. They say everything I have felt over the years, and I wanna go there and learn every single thing in their heads. Oh lordy lordy lordy lordy. After I win the lottery or something. The YouTube video on their home page (ya gotta scroll a bit) speaks right to my soul.  (A zillion thanks to Michele Grant for indirectly turning me onto them via this article about Adele and other singers blowing their voices out only to have miraculous vocal surgery performed on them, only to have them blow it out again, because they never fixed their shitty technique.)

Parent Update

In other news, we just visited my folks and had a really great visit. Everyone was chipper, we genuinely all enjoyed the visit, we went out to eat, etc.

It's pretty clear that my mom is mentally slipping... her short-term memory is really going bye-bye. She forgets to play the bills, and gets lost driving pretty consistently now, so my dad now handles the finances and drives her everywhere now, which I guess is not the end of the world.  But other than occasional short-term forgetfulness (she watched me and Matt eat english muffins; about 20 seconds later she asked if we ate breakfast even though she was looking at our plates, and she even took a bite of one of our muffins), she is pleasant, fun, on-task, engaged in conversations, and overall pretty OK. My dad is terrified, OTOH, and exahusted, of course, because he has to stay on top of everything... so it was nice to give him a little break.  Her blood-sugar is also considerably more under control, which is awesome. She looks and feels better, and she says she has more energy.  Her diabetes doc (the one who was delaying approving her  much-needed knee surgery because her blood-sugar numbers were too high) now says he'll approve the surgery in 3 months if she keeps up the good numbers.  The sad irony is that in 3 months she'll be that much farther gone mentally, she won't be able to enjoy her new knee and the freedom it affords her due to her cognitive decline. Dad worries with a fixed knee she may even wander on foot. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

This all sounds grim, but I'm still strangely optimistic.

The usual scum and mouldy bits of detritus on the surface of the water to spoon away. The mould is aerobic, that's why you have to submerge the pickles, so only the anaerobic fermentation bacteria can eat them. A few bins needed topping up water. A couple had white snowflake colonies instead of the usual green mold. I dunno what that is, but I just spoon some of it out and make sure the pickles are underwater.

So far so good.

It's been a crap couple of days. Breakthrough anxiety, indecisiveness, gloom, and exhaustion. Coupled with having my studio in pieces pending a trip to IKEA for some shelves for a new workstation, so there's no art happening.

I've given myself permission to take the day off of feeling bad about not doing anything hugely productive (like go to IKEA alone on transit to bring shelves home on a dolly) so maybe I can reset energy levels and expectations. 

High functioning but sometimes crash hard.

Yes, I've been taking my meds. I still think my dose is right because some days I feel over medicated and other days I have crashes so it's probably a good balance overall? Though I will probably talk to my doctor about being able to self regulate between 10mg and 20mg when I next see her. I think I have the self awareness (and the daily mood log habit) to manage my dose a little. We'll see.

I did a lot of volunteering with the SummerWorks performance festival earlier in the week and at the end of last week and it was great fun and I got a lot of positive feedback. But also it was pretty exhausting, mostly standing, and with all the walking to/from (about 4km each way). So there's a plausible reason for the exhaustion. 

Still, it sucks to wake up and have breakfast and want to go right back to bed. Instead I'm having coffee, typing this, and probably read or game later.

Self care.

Oops, I forgot to take a picture before enjoying.

Ingredients

1 red rose black tea bag

1/4 teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon fresh-grated ginger

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2-3 cloves

1 scant handful almonds

A few raisins

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Instructions

Bring a mug's worth of water, less an inch or so, to a boil. Steep the tea for a few minutes.

Pour the tea and everything else into the vitamix.

Run a smoothie cycle.

Pour into mug.

Enjoy.

Notes

Tastes as good as a "chai latte" and who the hell knows how much sugar (and perhaps fat?) is in those.

If you haven't worked with whole nutmegs before, the "small holes" side of any grater can handle it just fine. Ditto grating fresh ginger.

Mnemonic

Cinnamon and ginger, nutmeg and cloves

That's what gave me this shiny red nose.

Eight bins. 

After my sister Hope had a harrowing and nearly life-ending medical episode lasting from Christmas to March, she resolved that the whole family should get together.  She elected to hold this at York Beach, Maine.

Now, York Beach is your typical beach town. Lots of overpriced goods, expensive restaurants, family amusements and speed traps. (15 MPH over the limit, $230. I'm not bitter, really.) Other than being located in Maine and the water being hypothermia-inducingly cold, you could plop it down in any state from New Hampshire to Florida and the only way you would be able to tell would be the accent.

This is the coast north of Short Sands. The Union Bluff Hotel has been in business since 1868. Real estate along the Maine coast is just as crazy as anywhere else along the coast.  Every building there probably goes for over a million.

So hey, we made pickles again today.

Last weekend, d had reserved a half bushel of #2 cukes from the farmer's market vendor who also has all the delicious herbs (including dill), price $30. We picked it up this morning, along with some dill flowers. Instead of buying garlic from the market, I got pre-peeled cloves from the Korean grocer. Easy that way to be sure they weren't moldy.

So for each 3 litres of pickles (we made 7+) I used

• 6-8 dill stalks
• 4 smashed garlic cloves
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 aniseed star
• 1/2 tsp peppercorns
• 1 bag of cheap black tea (for tannins)

One batch had a couple hot chiles chopped up and tossed in. Another han double the garlic. Another had double mustard.

These are submerged in 5% brine and sitting in the closet. I also saved some brine from the last batch and "started" them with a splash of that culture.

It was a team effort. K did a lot of cuke trimming and washing, and also cut down the plastic trays we're using to push the cukes under water. D cut and trimmed and ran to the store for more mustard. All I really did was pack the bins, and do a little washing. It's so much easier with a team. And everyone has an investment in the food they'll later enjoy.

With better process and ingredients that aren't mouldy, I'm reasonably sure we won't lose any to infection this year but I guess we'll find out!

This episode was based on a single tweet - details here.