Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

Fire update
- Watch and wait warnings about the Carlisle River fire to the southeast of me
- Evacuation orders ahead of the Budj Bim firefront northwest of me
- I casually use words like 'firefront' now
- Some moron put a smouldering cigarette butt into our pillar box and the postmistress is ropeable

( I screencapped the incident map )

Garden update
The zucchinis are turning yellow and weird, and the problem seems to be low pollination rates. It's not blossom rot, because we put lime down and feed regularly. This site said that hot, dry weather can reduce the amount of pollen transferred:
Why Do My Zucchini Turn Yellow While Growing?

I feel weird about these instructions, okay? I just feel weird about it:
The simplest hand-pollination techniques is to pick a male flower, peel back its petals and rub the structure at its center -- covered with yellow pollen -- into the center of open female flowers. If you're going to take the time to hand pollinate, make sure you're not wasting your time. Pollen is only viable for one day and is at its best when the flowers first open in the morning, so make hand pollinating your first chore of the day.

Nonetheless I diligently made it the first chore of the day. Because I want zucchini bread.

( My hovercraft is full of eels: a Pythonesque tour of my garden )

Link Spam
- via fail_fandomanon:
How you can donate and help the volunteer firefighters in Australia's bushfire crisis

- At the ABC:
Supercell bushfire thunderstorms, tornadoes, fire-whirls and other deadly fires that spin (lilacsigil - do not read this. Or watch the video underneath.)

- via me on facebook, because I was very reassured by the way it helped me understand how co-ordinated and experienced our volunteer firefighters are. They are so great.
Lexton Fire 20/12/19
In this footage, taken from Ararat FCV which was used as a Strike Team Leaders’ vehicle, our strike team and others were tasked with asset protection at the Rainbow Serpent Festival Site.

While this footage looks chaotic, with vehicles circling everywhere, this is process is fairly coordinated. The Strike Team Leaders vehicle circles around to check the assets on the property and to prioritise and delegate tasks to the tankers as required.

- also from facebook, and as a palate cleanser from all that intense fire fighting:
Potaroo and baby eating strawberries

- For people who expressed interest in the Person of Interest Bookclub where we read the big bang fics of 2018 (before the 2020 big bang gets underway fingers crossed), the post is here:
Book Club for January 2020

- Via olivermoss and because it's never not funny to me that this is a Yuletide fandom:
“You’re My Present This Year”: An Oral History of the Folgers Incest Ad

- At BBC.com, because I love stories about photographs found in thrift stores:
Anonymous Project: A Secret History Hiding in Plain Sight

- via scans_daily and also via the twittersphere's reaction to Cats which was priceless:
THE CAST OF “CATS” AS MEDIEVAL CAT PAINTINGS: A THREAD

- via me googling how-to exercise videos then reading that someone was a kettlebell champion then discovering that this is an actual sport (the article is from 2017 but it was interesting):
Australian athletes weigh in on the emerging Kettlebell sport

- via jaggedwolf, a collection of podcasts premiered in 2019:
All of 2019's Audio Drama/Fiction Podcast Debut Releases

- at My Modern Met:
100+ Museums Turn Their Collections Into Free Downloadable Coloring Books

- via brithistorian:
Royal Derby Hospital: Disposable sterile hijabs introduced

- via fred_mouse:
The world is hooked on Australian coffee culture. This is how it got so good
I had a flattie in Albury the other day that was twice as good as anything I saw in a fortnight in Italy. The entire island of Manhattan has fewer really good places to get a coffee than Canberra.
(This cracked me up. "Maaaate, let's grab a flattie in Canberra!" I just. I just can't.)

- via, ummm, vass I think? Um. Apologies to whomever it was if it wasn't vass:
Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking tickets

Good old Bobby Drop Tables.

Secret wedding update
Obligatory Avatar: The Last Airbender song break:
Secret wedding!
Secret wedding!
Up in Sydney!
Secret, secret, secret, secret wedding!

It happened. Mum posted one photo on Facebook. I am still trying to understand how she justified two of her children not being at the wedding or responding to the photo, but that's obviously going to be a mystery for the ages. My Aunt who was smuggled into the country contacted me on facebook to ask if she can come visit, which I have arranged. Nobody said nothing about no wedding.

It's so weird.

Brain update
I'm weaning off desvenlafaxine and changing to escitalopram. Since the desven seems to be doing nothing at all, I think it's time for a change. IDK, brains are so annoying. I wish there was a better way.

Fire Nation update
Two of the peat fires are out, yay! One continues to smoulder, but should be out soon. The CFA called in experts who did lots of stuff with drones and IR sensors and long, long pipelines of water. (It was really well handled and reported.) Schools are back. The evacuated nursing care patients have been sent home. I'd say the air quality is better but now that we've had some rain and the fire danger is not extreme, everyone is burning off their heaped rubbish as well as running their wood fired heaters. So things are a little hazy, and it's not just me changing my meds.

Media update
The Good Wife:
Four episodes to go! I have my fingers crossed that Peter Florrick ends up alone and in prison.

My Favorite Murder:
Is now My Favorite Podcast, or at least the one I'm mainlining for sanity. It's oddly soothing to listen to. Also, I learn interesting facts, like Ed Kemper records audio books for the blind. I like the way they talk about mental health. And being safe. Fuck politeness!!

Lost In Space:
I have seen the first and a half episodes and am desperately in love with Maureen Robinson. I am less entranced by how very evil Parker Posey is. For some reason - maybe it's the murder podcast, maybe it's the endless court scenes in The Good Wife - I'm tired of the clever, charismatic sociopath. It's sad, because I love Parker Posey. Maybe when I'm feeling less frazzled I will want to have another go.

Infinity War:
Decided to read this Buzzfeed round-up of memes in lieu of watching the movie. I regret nothing.

Twitter:
I logged into mine for the first time in almost a decade, to change my password. It's a lot different now, isn't it? Ads and political scrums. I also discovered that I had a st_aurafina instagram back in the day. I don't know if I'm going to start using Twitter again, but I had a little tidy up and so on while I was logged in so maybe. (Actually, an hour into scrolling through Twitter and I started to get a tension headache. Maybe it's a good thing I'm not on it? Is there a way to do Twitter joyfully these days?)

The Handmaid's Tale
I am not allowed to watch this. This will send me into an apocalyptic spiral of doom. If I feel the urge to watch it (because it's streaming free on SBS) I have promised to run to lilacsigil and confess. She will save me from myself.

I really want to watch it tho.

Eurovision:
I am saving the semi-finals for the weekend for a long binge, while I crochet the five million projects I must complete. I think my town is having a low-key baby boom, even counting the impending triplets as one.

The Great Painting Challenge:
First there was the Great British Bake-off, then the Great British Sewing Bee, then the Great Pottery Throwdown, and now there's the Great Painting Challenge. These are all excellent and low-stress competitions with very skilled and very kind competitors. I think Pottery Throwdown was my favourite non-baking challenge - the judges are amazing and eccentric and passionate (there are often tears of joy and sorrow at the judging end of the show) but the Painting Challenge is also really good. I'm watching S1, and one of the judges (*coughs* LACK-LAN) is an annoying smartarse who offers little in the way of constructive criticism and much in the way of sassy remarks he thinks are hil-AIR-ious. But the other two judges make up for it with their own comments, and the mentors are lovely. I am not an artist, but I think I've learned how to look at art from watching how the competitors construct paintings each week.

Here's the official website: BBC1: The Big Painting Challenge.

Westworld S2:
Ooooh, so many theories. So many crack theories. So far, my favourites: ( spoilers are wearing a black hat )

Upcoming (hopefully soon): Killing Eve, taking lilacsigil through AHS: Coven because I think she'll like it, The Expanse S3, the Deadpool movie (after watching this Celine Dion video, Ashes - from the Deadpool 2 soundtrack I thought we should see the first movie. Also it has the actress who plays Verity in The Exorcist), and Legion S2 (this teaser All in Your Head shows why Aubrey Plaza needs to win all the awards.)

I’m not sure how much has been on the news about the bushfires, but yes, this is my end of the state, and yes, there are big scary fires frighteningly close to my home. We had an Watch and Act Notice issued from the Country Fire Authority, and per our own safety plan, we threw the kitties in a big cage, packed bras and undies, and headed to the coast. The sky was orange and flickering at 11:30. We travelled in a convoy with about ten cars, one of whom had a chainsaw to cut through any fallen trees that might block the road, but the way was clear.

We hit Port Campbell by midnight, parked by the water and waited. The cats were appalled and terrified, but apart from telling us about it in loud roars (Chewie) and pathetic meeps (Baggins), they were really well behaved. We were there for eight hours. We peed at the Surf Life Saving club toilets, which was the best place to get news updates because most of my town had evacuated there. We let the cats out of their cage in case they wanted to use the litter box we brought, but this idea was appalling to them (more roars and meeps) and they held on all night until we got home at 8am to a safe and intact house. Nothing in town seems to have burned, though some farms have been lost. There are no reports of injury so far.

I am posting this from a cafe in Warrnambool where we’ve gone to charge our devices. There’s no power at home, and not expected to be for two days. But we’re okay, kitties are okay, and I feel ready to go to work tomorrow to deal with the medication logistics that come with this kind of incident. Lots of handwriting labels, old school.

We are okay, our friends and workmates are okay. It’s a good outcome.