Reading

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Daily Happiness

1. So glad it's the weekend!

2. One nice benefit of the timing of my promotion/role change is that I don't have to help with inventory. People are busy with inventory this week and next week, but not me! It's not my problem anymore!

3. We had a nice time at Disneyland and I'm glad we went today instead of tomorrow, despite the heat and crowds, because now I have a weekend with no big plans so I can just rest and relax.

4. Jasper!

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disney

2025 Disneyland Trip #57 (8/22/25)

It's officially the start of Halloweentime at Disneyland. It was also in the mid-nineties today, so crowds and heat, not a great combination, but we still wanted to go, and we had a great time despite the heat (crowds weren't actually too bad once we were actually in the park).

( Halloween! )

Coastline Similarity

https://xkcd.com/3132/

Hey! A bunch of the early Cretaceous fossils on each coast seem to have been plagiarized, too!

https://xkcd.com/3132/

Current Mood: curious

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Ask A Manager: fighting to be the only woman in the firefighter calendar

this one is currently active but I HAD to bring it here. Content advisory: nudity ( Read more... )

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Daily Happiness

1. It has been warm and will be warm through the weekend (tomorrow is supposed to be the peak) but then is cooling off through the rest of the month. Thankfully it hasn't been super hot yet, but September is always the worst, so I'm sure that's coming.

2. Chloe and Gemma were so sweet and cuddly today! *_*

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Ask a Manager: My Team Keeps ASking About My Feelings

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Daily Happiness

1. We got dinner from Shake Shack tonight and they have a really good banana shake right now.

2. I finally got all our lego sets catalogued, so now we can keep track of what we have. (You know you have too many when you need a site to keep track of them.)

3. Molly looks so sweet here! (It's because she is sweet.)

most of them aren't wealthy enough to guillotine, just enough to be annoying

I am fascinated by reading antique magazines and the fiction published in them, and I don't want to imply that I'm not enjoying it, but... sometimes it's very hard to sympathize with the wealthy, or even the upper middle class.

Of course I'm used to literature being by and for the wealthy further back in history, and I don't say that I read about them without class consciousness, but somehow it's not as hard when it's from the 19th century or earlier. Maybe it's just that it's longer ago, or maybe it's because the society is more alien to me and harder to view through a personal lens.

But with these American upper middle class magazines from 1900-1940... well, the middle class was exploding in size and not all fiction or nonfiction was by and for the wealthy!

It's disorienting reading things about "every American girl" or "every new bride" in the 1920s that actually mean every American debutante. All four of my great-grandmothers got married in America around that time and none of them were worried about cruise ships and couture hats. (One was a nurse, one was a schoolteacher, one was a farmer's daughter and a farmer's wife, and one was a daughter of servants, from a big Catholic family.)

My tolerance for the wealthy perspective in fiction and nonfiction is lower the closer it gets to the present. I always have to overcome a strong impulse of disbelief that you're supposed to seriously sympathize with the idle rich, or people with maids, or the sphere where only people from recognizable New England families "count". Of course those people exist, but this is a big circulation women's magazine! Where are the average middle class women? The average middle class housewife was not a former debutante in 1908! But Woman's Home Companion could easily give the impression that she was. (Maybe there was a competing magazine that was preferred by the working middle classes. I'll try to find out.)

Entry tags:

religion,
workplace

Good Job: My Work Disrespected Me During a Religious Holiday

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Cesium

https://xkcd.com/3131/

Someday I hope to find a way to mess up a recipe so badly that it draws the attention of the International Air Transport Association, the International Mathematical Olympiad, or the NSA.

https://xkcd.com/3131/

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SGA/SG1: So Good to You by busaikko

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, SG1
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Vala Mal Doran, Cam Mitchell, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan
Rating: Teen
Length: 6000
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: busaikko on AO3
Themes: Marriage of Convenience, Teams, Ambiguous relationship, Humor, Friendship

Summary: Rodney had extorted a promise from John to not get recruited into SG-1 while he was on temporary re-assignment to the SGC. As John finished reciting his marriage vows from the crib-sheet Mitchell had handed him, he suspected Rodney would never let him live this down.

Reccer's Notes: With Atlantis stuck in San Francisco, John goes out with SG1 on a mission that needs his gene, but the local Ori-worshipers require those entering the sanctum (where there may be ZPMs) to be married. So John and Vala get hitched, and are able to trade for not one but three ZPMs, which is just as well as later in the story John desperately needs both Vala and the ZPM-power. The story focuses on John and Vala's friendship which develops after their marriage and despite John returning to Pegasus, then later deepens into something more. Cam is initially a dick due to jealousy as he and John had a past fling, but he gets his head out of his ass. The John/Vala relationship is wonderfully written and we're left in the end with it still being an little ambiguous (this is Vala, after all), but definitely hopeful. A lovely read.

Fanwork Links: So Good to You

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Daily Happiness

1. Both yesterday and today I had longish meetings that started at three, so I didn't get home until later, but for the rest of the week all my meetings are earlier, so I should be able to finish up sooner (or at least come home earlier and finish up there).

2. Yesterday one of our store managers turned in her two weeks notice, which sucks, as she is a good manager and also I like her personally, but she has to move back to Hawaii for family reasons. When I mentioned that to our company president, though, he said that if she's interested, they can probably find her a position at one of our Hawaii stores. It's not as easy as transferring locations within California, because while they're under our same parent company, they're separate from us, but it looks very likely, and she's interested, so I'm glad for her about that. (In terms of what will happen to the store she's at now, thankfully it's not one of our further away stores, so it should be easy to sort out a new manager.)

3. The armrests on this sofa are perfectly cat height.

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Harry Potter: A Convenient Arrangement by CatsAreCool (Rachel500) (TrekCat)

Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairings: Hermione/Harry
Characters: Hermione, Harry, Hermione's father and mother, Harry's mother, other canon characters
Rating: Teen
Length: 31,500 words
Creator Links: CatsAreCool / Rachel500 / TrekCat
Theme: Marriage of convenience, AU: Fork in the road, Working together

Summary: Lady Hermione Granger needs to get married in order to secure her inheritance and everybody agrees that the best candidate to help her is the Earl of Gryffindor, Defeater of the Dark Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter.
There's just one problem: they're not friends and Hermione may have once told him, thanks to some meddling Weasleys, that she'd never get involved with him.

Reccer's Notes: Excellent story. AU - Hermione never cared much for Harry, but when she's required to marry, he's the logical choice. I love how they discuss it like adults, reach a mutual agreement, and then find themselves gradually falling for each other. And all of this adult attraction goodness is nicely interwoven with an intriguing mystery. It's a well-told story with a thoroughly satisfying ending.

Content Notes: Canon-typical violence including attempted murder via spells, mention of old-fashioned patriarchal approaches to women including conc.ept of ownership and arranged marriages, use of love potions. Mildly anti-Dumbledore, anti-Ron and Ginny Weasley

Fanwork Links: A Convenient Arrangement by TrekCat at AO3

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admin: theme reminder

Theme Reminder: Marriage of Convenience

Photograph of a young Vietnamese couple in a sunny urban environment, with added text: Marriage of Convenience, at Fancake. A bride in a white dress and sunglasses leaves her groom behind at a bus stop. The bride is smiling and carrying a bouquet of lilies as she hikes up the long skirt of her dress and walks away. The groom is in the background, wearing a dark grey suit and sitting on a bench. He's blurry, but it looks like he might be smiling at her.

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Daily Happiness

1. The area manager who has been out on maternity leave for three months is back to work today. I'm glad to have her back, but wow there was a lot to catch her up on while she's been gone. I feel like I did so much talking today lol.

2. Tomorrow I have a meeting in the afternoon, but can have a leisurely morning, which I am looking forward to, as today was spent almost entirely with the aforementioned catching up and then an afternoon meeting, and I got home lateish and didn't really have much time to do other stuff, either work or personal.

3. Tuxie loves curling up under these plants.

Predicament

https://xkcd.com/3130/

I dropped my phone while trying to search, and I tried to unlock it from up here, so can you also search for screen repair places?

https://xkcd.com/3130/

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recipes

Chicken Florentine

I posted a few weeks ago about Florentine omelette, a recipe we really liked, after I saw it mentioned in a book (neither of us had heard of it previously).

Florentine or à la Florentine is a term from classic French cuisine that refers to dishes that typically include a base of cooked spinach, a protein component and Mornay sauce. Chicken Florentine is the most popular version. Because Mornay sauce is a derivation of béchamel sauce which includes roux and requires time and skill to prepare correctly, many contemporary recipes use simpler cream-based sauces.

A Florentine omelette doesn't have Mornay sauce; it's just an omelette with spinach and cheese filling (parmesan and gruyere traditional). However, eggs Florentine is a common café/diner dish from the UK and Australia, a breakfast sandwich with a poached egg, spinach, and sauce on an English muffin. (People seem to expect Hollandaise instead of a Mornay sauce in that case.) Chicken Florentine might be the oldest version: that idea is out there, but it might be apocryphal too. The history of the term and the style is colorful but probably not accurate:

Culinary lore attributes the term to 1533, when Catherine de Medici of Florence married Henry II of France. She supposedly brought a staff of chefs, lots of kitchen equipment and a love of spinach to Paris, and popularized Florentine-style dishes. Food historians have debunked this story, and Italian influence on French cuisine long predates this marriage.[4] Pierre Franey considered this theory apocryphal, but embraced the term Florentine in 1983.[5] Auguste Escoffier included a recipe for sole Florentine in his 1903 classic Le guide culinaire, translated into English as A Guide to Modern Cookery.

(Quotes from Wikipedia, Florentine (culinary term))

Because Chicken Florentine was trendy in the US in the mid 20th century, the popular English-language versions of the recipe have suffered from simplification. Recipes from the midcentury reportedly used mushroom soup. Modern ones overwhelmingly use cream instead of Mornay sauce; it was necessary to put "Mornay" in the search terms before I found any recipes with it (because 1. it's not hard to make a roux, like what are you talking about? & 2. we wanted to try the more authentic recipe). We looked at three and used this one because the Mornay sauce called for wine, mustard powder, and nutmeg. We didn't use gruyere, though, just parmesan, and served it over white rice and it was sooooooo good. So delicious.

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Star Trek AOS: you will see what it is to be overcome by magneticwave

Fandom: Star Trek Reboot/AOS
Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock
Rating: Teen
Length: 10,103
Creator Links:

magneticwave
Theme: Marriage of convenience

Summary: What kind of an idiot would try to explain magic to a Vulcan.

Reccer's Notes: I wouldn't be a good Trek fan if I didn't rec a bonding story for this theme! (I'm going ahead and equating a Vulcan bond with marriage.) Punk actually recced this story six years ago for the magic theme, but it is FANTASTIC for this theme, as well.

As Punk wrote, this is not a Trek/Harry Potter crossover. Rather, facets of the HP universe (magic, legilimency, occlumency) are imported into Trekverse, where Jim comes from a wizarding family. The mental aspects of wizarding are a perfect fit with Vulcan telepathy and bonding. This fic makes excellent use of the commonality.

Much of Trek canon is exactly the same: Jim meets Old Spock in the way he does in canon, but, in this story, a spontaneous bond forms between them. When Old Spock dies (at what seems to be the same time he does in canon), Jim's mind is nearly destroyed by the loss of the bond. He uses his wizarding mind powers to heal the wound somewhat, but he's in danger of dying from the trauma. The logical action to save his life is to have Young Spock bond with him.

What makes this story shine is the writing and characterization. Jim is mouthy, emotionally stunted, in denial, afraid of intimacy, yadda yadda. Spock is repressed, has a huge chip on his shoulder, and is filled with rage and jealousy. It is delicious and vivid and charming. I'm making it sound like this story is all cheek and levity, but it's also emotionally resonant with glimpses of Jim's grief and the depth of his friendship with both Spocks. A+ on so many levels.

Fanwork Links: you will see what it is to be overcome

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Daily Happiness

1. We had a nice time at Disneyland this morning (overcast and low temps most of the time and very light crowds) and successfully got the Kuzco sipper! We try not to collect the popcorn buckets and sippers because they don't actually get used and are just decorative, but take up a lot of space, but Kuzco's poison is always a must buy.

2. I don't have to go to Irvine at all this week, which is nice. I do have meetings in Gardena every day, but that's like less than half the drive.

3. Jasper looks so solemn!

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The Untamed: An Elegant Solution by Giraffeter

Fandom: The Untamed
Pairings/Characters: Lan Wangji/Nie Mingjue/Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, Wen Ning, Wen Yuan, Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang, Jin Zixuan
Rating: Explicit
Length: 205K words
Creator Links:

giraffeter
Theme: Marriage of Convenience, Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies, Fork in the Road AU, Fix-It

Summary: When Jiang Yanli joins Jiang Cheng in visiting Wei Wuxian at the Burial Grounds, the two brothers are on the verge of cutting ties forever — until Jiang Yanli has a better idea. Wei Wuxian doesn't need to leave the sect. He needs to get married, and she has the perfect Sect Leader in mind.

When Lan Wangji is invited to come along on Wei Wuxian's visit to the Unclean Realm to spend time with his new betrothed, Nie Mingjue, he agrees — even though his heart is breaking. How else is he ever going to see Wei Wuxian again?

When Nie Mingjue welcomes Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji into his home, he realizes two things very quickly: 1.) They clearly want each other so badly they can barely stand it, and 2.) Nie Mingjue is Into That.

(In which arranged marriage to Nie Mingjue solves just about everyone's problems)

Reccer's Notes: In the normal course of things, I'd say LWJ/WWX is my OTP. This story, however, has made me feral for LWJ/NMJ/WWX. More than that, though, this is a brilliant, carefully constructed fix-it. Giraffeter takes the time to set up every way this reality is changed from canon by the single decision to solve the friction between Wei Wuxian and the rest of the cultivation world by marrying him to a Sect Leader rather than cutting him off in the Burial Mounds. It's a long, immersive story that's well worth the time investment. The sex scenes are also some of the best I've read in my nearly thirty years in online fandom.

Fanwork Links: An Elegant Solution