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Weekly proof of life: less-crunchy days ahead | media | Korean BBQ | initial gardening thoughts
Apr. 11th, 2026 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
umadoshiSeasonal crunch is over! Feels like freedom, if you ignore the part where I still have, y'know, a job + freelance stuff. Increased freedom. We'll go with that.
My day off yesterday entailed such thrilling things as sleeping in and then taking ages to get up because Jinksy came to snuggle*; finishing my breakfast and tea by around noon; getting some banking done; washing my hair; vacuuming the two main levels of the house; spending several full hours being a cat-lap for Sinha; and starting in on a new novel for the first time since March Break or so.
*When I textedscruloose to say good morning, they said, "When my first alarm went, it was competing with Jinksy over on your other side rumble-purring so hard I swear the mattress was reverberating with it."
Reading: A couple more chapters of Braiding Sweetgrass, and I've finished Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks, which has a fair number of recipes but is, as the title indicates, more of a family history than a cookbook.
And last night I didn't want to spend much mental energy on choosing what fiction to read, so I decided to just go with Tough Guy, the third Game Changers novel. I imagine in the not-too-distant future I'll pick up the ebook "box set" of books 4-6 just to have them on hand.
Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and have seen five episodes of One Piece season 2, and I imagine we'll finish the latter before backtracking for the last couple-few episodes of Frieren. (I've also made note of this elsewhere, but to reinforce it in my brain: after The Pitt finishes, I need to remember to cancel our Crave subscription again.)
Eating: After the crunch ended on Thursday,scruloose and I ordered from a new (?) Korean BBQ place (bb.q Chicken) that a stranger in the local Bluesky feed had mentioned was good. We tried the bone-in Classic Fried Chicken (very minimal spicing, but very solid) and the boneless Golden Fried Chicken, the description of which didn't indicate any particular spiciness, but it turned out to be right on the edge of my comfort level...but also a really delicious seasoning to go with the heat, so I'm counting that as a definite win. The place offers a whole array of flavor options, so I imagine we'll be trying it again.
Weathering/Growing: Yesterday was sunny and relatively warm, and now we're back to a slightly-chilly rainy/damp stretch, but a few days in the forecast will theoretically get back up into the double digits.
At my instigation, we're going to take another stab at Doing Garden Stuff this year. ( VERY preliminary notes )
My day off yesterday entailed such thrilling things as sleeping in and then taking ages to get up because Jinksy came to snuggle*; finishing my breakfast and tea by around noon; getting some banking done; washing my hair; vacuuming the two main levels of the house; spending several full hours being a cat-lap for Sinha; and starting in on a new novel for the first time since March Break or so.
*When I texted
scruloose to say good morning, they said, "When my first alarm went, it was competing with Jinksy over on your other side rumble-purring so hard I swear the mattress was reverberating with it."Reading: A couple more chapters of Braiding Sweetgrass, and I've finished Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks, which has a fair number of recipes but is, as the title indicates, more of a family history than a cookbook.
And last night I didn't want to spend much mental energy on choosing what fiction to read, so I decided to just go with Tough Guy, the third Game Changers novel. I imagine in the not-too-distant future I'll pick up the ebook "box set" of books 4-6 just to have them on hand.
Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and have seen five episodes of One Piece season 2, and I imagine we'll finish the latter before backtracking for the last couple-few episodes of Frieren. (I've also made note of this elsewhere, but to reinforce it in my brain: after The Pitt finishes, I need to remember to cancel our Crave subscription again.)
Eating: After the crunch ended on Thursday,
scruloose and I ordered from a new (?) Korean BBQ place (bb.q Chicken) that a stranger in the local Bluesky feed had mentioned was good. We tried the bone-in Classic Fried Chicken (very minimal spicing, but very solid) and the boneless Golden Fried Chicken, the description of which didn't indicate any particular spiciness, but it turned out to be right on the edge of my comfort level...but also a really delicious seasoning to go with the heat, so I'm counting that as a definite win. The place offers a whole array of flavor options, so I imagine we'll be trying it again.Weathering/Growing: Yesterday was sunny and relatively warm, and now we're back to a slightly-chilly rainy/damp stretch, but a few days in the forecast will theoretically get back up into the double digits.
At my instigation, we're going to take another stab at Doing Garden Stuff this year. ( VERY preliminary notes )
umadoshiEaster Monday. I slept pretty badly (repeatedly waking, and not taking ibuprofen when I first woke with a headache; I've absorbed the notion of "if possible, don't take ibuprofen if you're going to be lying down right afterward" and this tends to result in this exact situation of "wake up in the night with headache, tell self you'll go back to sleep and it'll go away [which never works], wake again later with no reduction in headache, take ibuprofen when about to lie back down anyway").
I had slightly larger, albeit still small, ambitions for today prior to the bad sleep, but we ventured out briefly on an unsuccessful quest for scones (we verified the shop was open and I even called ahead to try to make sure they had scones, but I got voicemail and no one returned my call, so we gambled and lost). Ah well.
( all the rest is various food talk [with a bit about eating + blood glucose aggravation] )
I had slightly larger, albeit still small, ambitions for today prior to the bad sleep, but we ventured out briefly on an unsuccessful quest for scones (we verified the shop was open and I even called ahead to try to make sure they had scones, but I got voicemail and no one returned my call, so we gambled and lost). Ah well.
( all the rest is various food talk [with a bit about eating + blood glucose aggravation] )
Weekly proof of life, Easter-in-name-only edition
Apr. 5th, 2026 02:39 pmumadoshiWe're not observing Easter in any way, other than being grateful for the four-day weekend (today being the third day). The work crunch continues, so this reprieve is a real mercy. (Am I starting a rewrite after this post? Yes. But I did take yesterday fully off, and Friday's work consisted only of reading through this translation.)
Reading: Very, very little, although I've been picking away some more at Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks.
Watching: The main thing is that, since the crunch has not kindly wrapped up, I've given up on my initial notion of holding off until it's over to start season 2 of the live-action One Piece.scruloose and I are two episodes in. (If we'd decided to actively dedicate the weekend to it, we could've watched the whole thing before Tuesday, but have opted against that.) No Chopper yet. *vibrates*
Weathering: Yay for spring and all that, but so far it's a very Nova Scotian spring--a lot of the province had a bunch of snow and ice on Friday, with more of the same today. We're mostly getting very chilly rain here, which is bad enough.
Meat-puppetry (kinda): Within the last week or two, the length of my hair went from "this is more effort than I like to keep it off my face, but hey, having a ponytail is still novel" to "IT'S TOUCHING ME MAKE IT STOP", and thankfully Ginny was up for chopping it (mostly) all off last night when she and Kas were over. It's now back to being VERY short without the drastic step of simply buzz cutting it; there's even enough length at the front that some of it's still dyed from (I think it was?) December. Such a relief.
(Ginny cuts her own hair, Kas' hair, and my hair, and mine is veryvery different from either of theirs--dead straight and slippery and, although I didn't know this until I was at least in my thirties, very thick despite being very fine. So when she does my hair, there just keeps being more of it, even with a quarter or a third of it buzzed right down in an undercut, and it slides away from whatever she's trying to do with it. On top of that, I only actually get her to do it maybe twice a year, so she doesn't really have a chance to get used to my hair, but she gamely makes it work anyway and I appreciate it. ^_^)
Reading: Very, very little, although I've been picking away some more at Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks.
Watching: The main thing is that, since the crunch has not kindly wrapped up, I've given up on my initial notion of holding off until it's over to start season 2 of the live-action One Piece.
scruloose and I are two episodes in. (If we'd decided to actively dedicate the weekend to it, we could've watched the whole thing before Tuesday, but have opted against that.) No Chopper yet. *vibrates*Weathering: Yay for spring and all that, but so far it's a very Nova Scotian spring--a lot of the province had a bunch of snow and ice on Friday, with more of the same today. We're mostly getting very chilly rain here, which is bad enough.
Meat-puppetry (kinda): Within the last week or two, the length of my hair went from "this is more effort than I like to keep it off my face, but hey, having a ponytail is still novel" to "IT'S TOUCHING ME MAKE IT STOP", and thankfully Ginny was up for chopping it (mostly) all off last night when she and Kas were over. It's now back to being VERY short without the drastic step of simply buzz cutting it; there's even enough length at the front that some of it's still dyed from (I think it was?) December. Such a relief.
(Ginny cuts her own hair, Kas' hair, and my hair, and mine is veryvery different from either of theirs--dead straight and slippery and, although I didn't know this until I was at least in my thirties, very thick despite being very fine. So when she does my hair, there just keeps being more of it, even with a quarter or a third of it buzzed right down in an undercut, and it slides away from whatever she's trying to do with it. On top of that, I only actually get her to do it maybe twice a year, so she doesn't really have a chance to get used to my hair, but she gamely makes it work anyway and I appreciate it. ^_^)
(no subject)
Apr. 2nd, 2026 07:00 pmshadarastoday I have been a lump due to WEATHER but since I haven't gotten to responding to comments on my last post about work bullshit, have an update re: work bullshit!
Tuesday they say "hey, we're going on short weeks!" and are like "I guess you can take a layoff if you don't wanna do that" and people are mostly just like "UH!!!"
Wednesday I am informed that I'll be going with one of the journeymen to another job starting probably next Wednesday. (Also one of the journeymen is like "yeah, I called [company I worked for before this] and they said they'd take me back") (Also we learn that a select few people would be staying on full weeks anyway!)
Today we are all informed, not even by the bosses, that they will not be doing short weeks after all. So. You know. Super cool of them, definitely didn't shoot themselves in the feet re crew morale and general good-will.
It's all very, "you're doing a shit job of communicating and are gonna lose people because of this", because I don't think the journeyman I'll be going to that job with wants to come back. I don't blame him; we're at the stage of the job where a lot of the work is "figure out what got missed/didn't happen because we didn't have the necessary pieces at the time", which means a lot of working around shit that's now in our way, etc etc. Plus this whole debacle about work hours.
Tuesday they say "hey, we're going on short weeks!" and are like "I guess you can take a layoff if you don't wanna do that" and people are mostly just like "UH!!!"
Wednesday I am informed that I'll be going with one of the journeymen to another job starting probably next Wednesday. (Also one of the journeymen is like "yeah, I called [company I worked for before this] and they said they'd take me back") (Also we learn that a select few people would be staying on full weeks anyway!)
Today we are all informed, not even by the bosses, that they will not be doing short weeks after all. So. You know. Super cool of them, definitely didn't shoot themselves in the feet re crew morale and general good-will.
It's all very, "you're doing a shit job of communicating and are gonna lose people because of this", because I don't think the journeyman I'll be going to that job with wants to come back. I don't blame him; we're at the stage of the job where a lot of the work is "figure out what got missed/didn't happen because we didn't have the necessary pieces at the time", which means a lot of working around shit that's now in our way, etc etc. Plus this whole debacle about work hours.
Now for something different: Using R to make oncoplots
Apr. 1st, 2026 01:21 pmgeraineonI'm sure someone much better at using R to make beautiful figures would have figured out how to create an oncoplot easily, even when the data is not in a MAF or VCF format (it's CSV).
Anyway, thanks to the combined power of ggplot2 and patchwork, I was able to create what my collaborator wanted for the paper he's writing on this data, and so in case I ever forget it and in case it's ever useful for anyone, here are some links that I've referenced:
For data prep, I arranged the data by the order of frequency of the gene mutation (highest to lowest), gave all the sample a new ID based on this order and used that new ID for the x-axis for all the figures I made so that they correspond to each other.
Using patchwork, I made it so that the figures for ethnicity, age category, etc. were a lot thinner in terms of width compared to the gene plot. I didn't make a stacked bar chart as shown in the oncoplot example because it was already represented by another figure elsewhere, but if I had wanted to do it, it shouldn't be hard using these two packages.
I don't know why I spent two days trying to wrangle other packages specifically for oncoplots when this solution just took me half an hour, tops. But I guess one has to go through all that pain before deciding to ditch those solutions and go with what's already familiar and known to me (that is, ggplot2).
Anyway, thanks to the combined power of ggplot2 and patchwork, I was able to create what my collaborator wanted for the paper he's writing on this data, and so in case I ever forget it and in case it's ever useful for anyone, here are some links that I've referenced:
- ggplot2 to make heatmaps: I used this to make (1) heatmaps for the genes; (2) heatmap for ethnicity, age category, smoking history, etc. all separately
- patchwork to combine plots: Then I combined them all, collected all the legend to the side and done! This was a pretty useful guide as well.
For data prep, I arranged the data by the order of frequency of the gene mutation (highest to lowest), gave all the sample a new ID based on this order and used that new ID for the x-axis for all the figures I made so that they correspond to each other.
Using patchwork, I made it so that the figures for ethnicity, age category, etc. were a lot thinner in terms of width compared to the gene plot. I didn't make a stacked bar chart as shown in the oncoplot example because it was already represented by another figure elsewhere, but if I had wanted to do it, it shouldn't be hard using these two packages.
I don't know why I spent two days trying to wrangle other packages specifically for oncoplots when this solution just took me half an hour, tops. But I guess one has to go through all that pain before deciding to ditch those solutions and go with what's already familiar and known to me (that is, ggplot2).
it's nice to have the windows open
Mar. 31st, 2026 07:57 pmshadarasHello, I exist, life's been busy and I've been tired.
1.
I read all of Witch Hat Atelier (up through ch94, for future!me's reference if I ever think to check), which means I have more than hit the point where it's like "oh! there's the part where this story is about trauma metaphors!". But also all the bits that make me cry are the bits about the kids talking about how much they've learned from their friends and how they can stay true to themselves and their dreams and how magic is for bringing joy and life to the world, so. The part of the Angsty White-Haired Man's life that's about him going "teaching is the most rewarding thing I ever could've done" is the part that interests me, not the "oh THAT'S how we're making visible the childhood trauma that defines you" part, y'know?
2.
Some more MOUSE (this fic does have a title, and eventually I will finish it)
3.
The weather is SO WEIRD this week? It's in the high 60s F every day EXCEPT Thursday, where it drops back down to MAYBE 40F at the highest, which is lower than the lows the rest of the week. It is also closer to NORMAL NEW ENGLAND EARLY SPRING than the high 60s F.
Today, at least, I have not had any headache from pressure changes! Which is nice, since yesterday I was grumbly about it and I have ever expectation that I'll be like "ughhhh" about it the rest of the week.
4.
Work is doing Bullshit, but when they tell us only the broad strokes of their plans for Bullshit and it mostly makes everyone go WTF, I will await further specifications about how exactly it'll manifest. (They want to go to short weeks. This is... them playing a game with what they're contracted for and how many hours they have available. I am very curious how many people are going to go "fine, lay me off then" instead.)
5.
I think it's very funny that I'm like "right, I should post, say hi, etc" on Trans Day of Visibility, a day that I keep forgetting that it is.
anyway hi I'm trans when I think it's useful to use that term, guess I'm visible today or something?
1.
I read all of Witch Hat Atelier (up through ch94, for future!me's reference if I ever think to check), which means I have more than hit the point where it's like "oh! there's the part where this story is about trauma metaphors!". But also all the bits that make me cry are the bits about the kids talking about how much they've learned from their friends and how they can stay true to themselves and their dreams and how magic is for bringing joy and life to the world, so. The part of the Angsty White-Haired Man's life that's about him going "teaching is the most rewarding thing I ever could've done" is the part that interests me, not the "oh THAT'S how we're making visible the childhood trauma that defines you" part, y'know?
2.
Some more MOUSE (this fic does have a title, and eventually I will finish it)
[Rhei stands] next to Mouse, gazing at the city they’re moving away from. Its buildings are beautiful, it rises gracefully from the water, and it stands so proudly against the sky. Many of the rich and powerful of the city might have made ugly choices, and continue to make them, but the majority of its people are just that: people, doing their best in less than ideal circumstances.
And they look at Mouse, who made the bravest choice they could make, and who doesn’t seem to quite realise the enormity of what they have chosen and how rare it is to be able to do.
It is nothing like anything Rhei has ever done, a kind of choice Rhei doesn’t think they’ll ever need to make, and Mouse was willing to sacrifice their whole life for not a promise but a chance at something better.
Rhei can’t help but admire that.
3.
The weather is SO WEIRD this week? It's in the high 60s F every day EXCEPT Thursday, where it drops back down to MAYBE 40F at the highest, which is lower than the lows the rest of the week. It is also closer to NORMAL NEW ENGLAND EARLY SPRING than the high 60s F.
Today, at least, I have not had any headache from pressure changes! Which is nice, since yesterday I was grumbly about it and I have ever expectation that I'll be like "ughhhh" about it the rest of the week.
4.
Work is doing Bullshit, but when they tell us only the broad strokes of their plans for Bullshit and it mostly makes everyone go WTF, I will await further specifications about how exactly it'll manifest. (They want to go to short weeks. This is... them playing a game with what they're contracted for and how many hours they have available. I am very curious how many people are going to go "fine, lay me off then" instead.)
5.
I think it's very funny that I'm like "right, I should post, say hi, etc" on Trans Day of Visibility, a day that I keep forgetting that it is.
anyway hi I'm trans when I think it's useful to use that term, guess I'm visible today or something?
Weekly proof of life is weirdly heavy on the cinnamon talk
Mar. 29th, 2026 03:49 pmumadoshiMedia intake for the last week or so boils down to "a couple chapters of various non-fiction [nothing new] and Thursday's The Pitt." We'll probably try to get an episode or two of Frieren in tonight, before Dayjob swallows me whole for another week.
My main goal for this weekend has been accomplished: todayscruloose and I decanted some spices from bags into jars (including the cinnamons and chai spice baking blend replenished from Silk Road* since the last time we batch-prepped for banana bread) and then did a round of bagging up dry ingredients for nine quadruple batches of my breakfast banana bread while actually baking a tenth batch. It's only the second time we've done it, and having the dry ingredients bagged and ready makes such a difference, but the prospect was more exhausting than it had any right to be. (Actually doing it was fine. This time we [reversing how we did it last time] went with me reading off the amounts for each ingredient and rotating the bags while scruloose did the actual measuring and dumping ingredients in.)
*Last time we didn't have nearly enough of any one spice for ten quadruple batches, so some got the chai spice blend and some got the Vietnamese Saigon cinnamon and some got the Indonesian Korintje cinnamon. We also have some of their third type, the Sri Lankan true cinnamon, but the description on the jar says its flavor is pretty delicate, so it didn't seem likely to really shine in the banana bread.
(My erratic spices fascination has resulted in us currently having four kinds, actually, but little idea of what to make that will actually showcase the different types so I can really tell the difference. ^^; [The fourth is the Royal Cinnamon from Burlap and Barrel in the US.])
My main goal for this weekend has been accomplished: today
scruloose and I decanted some spices from bags into jars (including the cinnamons and chai spice baking blend replenished from Silk Road* since the last time we batch-prepped for banana bread) and then did a round of bagging up dry ingredients for nine quadruple batches of my breakfast banana bread while actually baking a tenth batch. It's only the second time we've done it, and having the dry ingredients bagged and ready makes such a difference, but the prospect was more exhausting than it had any right to be. (Actually doing it was fine. This time we [reversing how we did it last time] went with me reading off the amounts for each ingredient and rotating the bags while scruloose did the actual measuring and dumping ingredients in.)*Last time we didn't have nearly enough of any one spice for ten quadruple batches, so some got the chai spice blend and some got the Vietnamese Saigon cinnamon and some got the Indonesian Korintje cinnamon. We also have some of their third type, the Sri Lankan true cinnamon, but the description on the jar says its flavor is pretty delicate, so it didn't seem likely to really shine in the banana bread.
(My erratic spices fascination has resulted in us currently having four kinds, actually, but little idea of what to make that will actually showcase the different types so I can really tell the difference. ^^; [The fourth is the Royal Cinnamon from Burlap and Barrel in the US.])
