Schools closed, dismissing early in N.S. with nor'easter set to bring snow, wind
Feb. 23rd, 2026 05:40 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
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Some schools in Nova Scotia are closed or dismissing early today as a nor'easter arrives in the region.
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'We have failed them': Studies overlook sex, gender in veteran pain care
Feb. 23rd, 2026 05:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
A recent study on chronic pain management for Canadian veterans has uncovered a critical flaw in decades of research: Not a single one examined the impact of sex or gender on treatment effectiveness.
Ontario has not purchased or leased new space for thousands of returning civil servants
Feb. 23rd, 2026 04:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
Premier Doug Ford’s government says it has not signed any new leases or purchased real estate to accommodate 60,000 public sector workers ordered to return to the office five days a week, as unions representing the civil servants say they're facing a serious space crunch.
Travel bans, flight cancellations as winter storm hits U.S. northeast
Feb. 23rd, 2026 04:56 amcbc_topnews_feed
Broadway shows were even cancelled Sunday evening as a fierce winter storm bore down on the Northeastern U.S., prompting blizzard warnings from Maryland to Massachusetts.
An Alberta man wanted MAID. Instead, he died in a Catholic hospital, waiting to be transferred
Feb. 23rd, 2026 04:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
William Hume knew he was dying and wanted medical assistance in dying (MAID). But when he ended up in a hospital run by a Catholic health-care provider, his last wishes weren't able to happen. He would die while waiting to transfer so he could receive MAID.
Edmonton woman frustrated by 18-month battle with Equifax and TransUnion to fix credit rating
Feb. 23rd, 2026 04:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
After identity thieves racked up $20,000 in debt in her name, Zoe Lorenz-Boser spent a year and a half trying to convince Equifax and TransUnion the debts weren’t hers. Experts say her case highlights systemic problems with Canada’s credit reporting system.
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A new study is examining whether providing blueberries for people to eat every day, combined with 30 grams of protein powder and personalized exercise routines, will improve frailty and heart health in older people. If it does, researchers hope the results will bolster the argument for doctors to prescribe blueberries. “Food prescribing” is part of a larger trend gaining traction in Canada.
2026/026: Cleopatra — Saara el-Arifi
Feb. 23rd, 2026 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth2026/026: Cleopatra — Saara el-Arifi
"They'll tell stories of you in years to come," Charmion continued.
Centuries. Millennia.
"I hope so."
I did not understand what it was I wished for. I hoped to become a legend, but I forgot what all stories must have: a monster.
I could not have known that monster would be me. [loc. 452]
Cleopatra narrates her own story from a perspective that remains obscure until the end of the novel. The novel begins with the death of Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII and her own ascent to the throne of Egypt as the last Pharaoh: and it ends, of course, with her death.
Cleopatra, in this account, is a clever, learned woman, sometimes ruthless but also driven by love -- and not only romantic love, but also love for her children, her country, and even her siblings. The Egypt in which Cleopatra lives and rules is a magical land: the Ptolemies have been gifted by the gods, each having a birthmark and a magical talent bestowed by their patron deity. ( Read more... )
Monday Update 2-23-26
Feb. 23rd, 2026 12:37 amysabetwordsmithThese are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds"
Poem: "Embrace My Fate"
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order
Poem: "The Spectrum of Your Being"
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bricolage
Today's Adventures
Science
Birdfeeding
Meteor Shower Calendar
Philosophical Questions: Life
Edible Landscaping Order
Meme
Photos: House Yard
Water
Birdfeeding
Books
Follow Friday 2-20-26: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Winter 2025-2026 A-I
Energy
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Photos: Flowerbeds
Books
Birdfeeding
Hard Things
Safety has 49 comments. Food has 53 comments. Wildlife has 39 comments. Food has 67 comments. Robotics has 146 comments.
Last week's half-price sale in Not Quite Kansas went well. All sponsored poems have been posted, so you can find those via the title links on the sale page.
The 2026 Rose and Bay Awards are now open for excellence in crowdfunding. It's time to vote for your favorite projects!
The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31, 2025.
The nomination period spans January 1-January 31, 2026.
The voting period spans February 1-February 28, 2026.
These are the handlers for the 2026 award season:
"The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds" belongs to Not Quite Kansas and needs $34.50 to be complete. Raymond and Gideon get attacked on the way home from research.
The weather has been variable here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, several starlings, one male and two female house finches, one female and two male cardinals, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. I flushed the great horned owl from the ritual meadow when I went out there. A skein of geese flew overhead, going north. Currently blooming: crocuses.
Poem: "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds"
Poem: "Embrace My Fate"
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order
Poem: "The Spectrum of Your Being"
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bricolage
Today's Adventures
Science
Birdfeeding
Meteor Shower Calendar
Philosophical Questions: Life
Edible Landscaping Order
Meme
Photos: House Yard
Water
Birdfeeding
Books
Follow Friday 2-20-26: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Winter 2025-2026 A-I
Energy
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Photos: Flowerbeds
Books
Birdfeeding
Hard Things
Safety has 49 comments. Food has 53 comments. Wildlife has 39 comments. Food has 67 comments. Robotics has 146 comments.
Last week's half-price sale in Not Quite Kansas went well. All sponsored poems have been posted, so you can find those via the title links on the sale page.
The 2026 Rose and Bay Awards are now open for excellence in crowdfunding. It's time to vote for your favorite projects!
The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31, 2025.
The nomination period spans January 1-January 31, 2026.
The voting period spans February 1-February 28, 2026.
These are the handlers for the 2026 award season:
Art:
Fiction:
Poetry:
Webcomic:
Other Project:
Patron:
"The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds" belongs to Not Quite Kansas and needs $34.50 to be complete. Raymond and Gideon get attacked on the way home from research.
The weather has been variable here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, several starlings, one male and two female house finches, one female and two male cardinals, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. I flushed the great horned owl from the ritual meadow when I went out there. A skein of geese flew overhead, going north. Currently blooming: crocuses.
Poem: "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds"
Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:29 pmysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the October 2020 Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "demons" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.
Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, an unprovoked attack, hellhounds, violence, gore, unexpected rescue, playing with prey, fatally injured opponents, minor injuries to main characters, awkward discussions, willing sacrifice, intimate magical healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $0.25/line, so $5 will reveal 20 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses. So far sponsors include:fuzzyred,
355 lines, Buy It Now = $44.50
Amount donated = $10
Verses posted = 13 of 118
Amount remaining to fund fully = $34.50
Amount needed to fund next verse = $0.25
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $0.75
( Read more... )
wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "demons" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, an unprovoked attack, hellhounds, violence, gore, unexpected rescue, playing with prey, fatally injured opponents, minor injuries to main characters, awkward discussions, willing sacrifice, intimate magical healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $0.25/line, so $5 will reveal 20 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses. So far sponsors include:
fuzzyred, 355 lines, Buy It Now = $44.50
Amount donated = $10
Verses posted = 13 of 118
Amount remaining to fund fully = $34.50
Amount needed to fund next verse = $0.25
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $0.75
( Read more... )
Bits and pieces, catching up
Feb. 23rd, 2026 04:53 pmmificI've been busy lately with several things on the go - doing HR art for the ICE OUT donations challenge, recording a long SGA podfic for the Podfic Big Bang (And Hope by Sihaya Black), and trying to fit in recording a couple of shorter ones for Romancing McShep and Romancing SGA, as well. Oof. Plus a lot of HR fic reading. I've accepted that it's impossible to keep up in any meaningful sense, and just surf along reading stuff I see reccd or authors I know I like a lot, and the few WIPs I'm following. Eventually I guess I'll catch up with numerous gems in the fandom that I missed in this avalanche of new fics, many of them extremely good.
In terms of reading very good authors, I had an exceptionally obsessive episode today where I started a story by one of my fave HR writers and couldn't read it. Because (unlike in ALL their other fics) they'd chosen to do all the Ilya POV narration in Ilya-speak, with most of the articles dropped. Russian doesn't have separate articles, I gather, because the distinction between "a ball" & "the ball" is done with word order - which is why in English, Russians often drop their articles. An example:
1. Девушка читает книгу. (The girl is reading a book)
2. Книгу читает девушка. (The girl is reading the book)
In both sentences, the meaning is nearly the same. However, in Sentence 2, the placement of “книгу” (book) at the beginning, before “девушка” (girl), highlights the importance of the book and implies a specific book.
The parts of the fic where it was Ilya's dialogue were fine because that portrays his actual speech, but the narrative (for me) is his thoughts (internal narration) in tight 3rd POV and there's NO WAY he'd be dropping "articles" in his thinking in Russian. It made him seem stupid, which he very much isn't, and I couldn't bear to read it. So I just now copied it into Word and betaed it, adding back in all the articles from his narrative POV parts. If you recognise the fic, hit me up in a DM and I'll share the edited version. It's a bloody good fic otherwise, 9000 words.
Life's been quiet apart from reccing, writing, arting and podficcing, and I'm looking forward to a dinner out with friends this Wednesday. Also enjoying sweet corn, and the start of the stone fruit season, with gorgeous nectarines. My garden is blowsy and straggly now, in late summer, and I need to take some time (ha!) to trim it back a bit. It's still warm here, about 22-24 degC highs, usually, and drier of late so I'm still watering the entire garden by hand every 3 days.
One bloody annoying thing that happened was that my credit card was hacked back at the end of January (picked up via notifications coming up on my phone from my banking app asking me to approve a bunch of things I hadn't bought). Luckily all smallish purchases (kids? An unambitious thief, anyway) and I think the bank will refund them. But that meant cancelling that card and them mailing me another (a process I last went through several months ago). And then the mailed card never arrived (presumed stolen from my letterbox) and I got another couple of false transactions on the new card that I hadn't even seen yet! So yet another card cancellation and this time I got it mailed to my bank. I was very glad that after the last debacle several months ago I'd arranged a second credit card via my other bank (I have accounts at 2 banks for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture).
Anyway, in terms of recs:
- I'm reading all Evilharlowe's HR works on AO3 - they really are a fantastic writer.
- Happened on a great short edit that sets Shane and Ilya's tuna melt hiatus to a Chappel Roan song (The Subway - amazing song) - heartrending edit, very well done, but man, I wish it were a full-sized fanvid.
- Bringing to your attention this workout video by Hudson Williams. Leg day and his skincare routine are really paying off! (CN for casual mentions of eating extreme diets or 'not eating' to make his body fit acting roles. Which is worrying but probably routine for actors.)
- there's a LOT of HR podfic by now and every day there are 1 or 2 new ones. It's a great way to revisit fics I read and loved while I do art. For example,cathexys podficced Magneticwave's Clear to a Hedgehog. This link gets you HR podfic on AO3.
Enough for now. Waving at you all - hope things are going as well as they can.! 💗
In terms of reading very good authors, I had an exceptionally obsessive episode today where I started a story by one of my fave HR writers and couldn't read it. Because (unlike in ALL their other fics) they'd chosen to do all the Ilya POV narration in Ilya-speak, with most of the articles dropped. Russian doesn't have separate articles, I gather, because the distinction between "a ball" & "the ball" is done with word order - which is why in English, Russians often drop their articles. An example:
1. Девушка читает книгу. (The girl is reading a book)
2. Книгу читает девушка. (The girl is reading the book)
In both sentences, the meaning is nearly the same. However, in Sentence 2, the placement of “книгу” (book) at the beginning, before “девушка” (girl), highlights the importance of the book and implies a specific book.
The parts of the fic where it was Ilya's dialogue were fine because that portrays his actual speech, but the narrative (for me) is his thoughts (internal narration) in tight 3rd POV and there's NO WAY he'd be dropping "articles" in his thinking in Russian. It made him seem stupid, which he very much isn't, and I couldn't bear to read it. So I just now copied it into Word and betaed it, adding back in all the articles from his narrative POV parts. If you recognise the fic, hit me up in a DM and I'll share the edited version. It's a bloody good fic otherwise, 9000 words.
Life's been quiet apart from reccing, writing, arting and podficcing, and I'm looking forward to a dinner out with friends this Wednesday. Also enjoying sweet corn, and the start of the stone fruit season, with gorgeous nectarines. My garden is blowsy and straggly now, in late summer, and I need to take some time (ha!) to trim it back a bit. It's still warm here, about 22-24 degC highs, usually, and drier of late so I'm still watering the entire garden by hand every 3 days.
One bloody annoying thing that happened was that my credit card was hacked back at the end of January (picked up via notifications coming up on my phone from my banking app asking me to approve a bunch of things I hadn't bought). Luckily all smallish purchases (kids? An unambitious thief, anyway) and I think the bank will refund them. But that meant cancelling that card and them mailing me another (a process I last went through several months ago). And then the mailed card never arrived (presumed stolen from my letterbox) and I got another couple of false transactions on the new card that I hadn't even seen yet! So yet another card cancellation and this time I got it mailed to my bank. I was very glad that after the last debacle several months ago I'd arranged a second credit card via my other bank (I have accounts at 2 banks for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture).
Anyway, in terms of recs:
- I'm reading all Evilharlowe's HR works on AO3 - they really are a fantastic writer.
- Happened on a great short edit that sets Shane and Ilya's tuna melt hiatus to a Chappel Roan song (The Subway - amazing song) - heartrending edit, very well done, but man, I wish it were a full-sized fanvid.
- Bringing to your attention this workout video by Hudson Williams. Leg day and his skincare routine are really paying off! (CN for casual mentions of eating extreme diets or 'not eating' to make his body fit acting roles. Which is worrying but probably routine for actors.)
- there's a LOT of HR podfic by now and every day there are 1 or 2 new ones. It's a great way to revisit fics I read and loved while I do art. For example,
cathexys podficced Magneticwave's Clear to a Hedgehog. This link gets you HR podfic on AO3.Enough for now. Waving at you all - hope things are going as well as they can.! 💗
Daily Happiness
Feb. 22nd, 2026 09:04 pmtorachan1. We had a very nice morning at Disneyland today. A little warm (I wore a sweatshirt when we got in and had to take it off about halfway through, so then I had to lug it around the rest of the time, which was annoying) and a little crowded, but we ate a lot of good food and had a good time.
2. Poor Tuxie looks like he got in a scuffle again. Yesterday he came to the door with one eye partially closed and the fur between his eye and ear on that side scraped up. He's looking better today (eye fully open) and unlike some times before where he disappeared for a few days to hunker down, he has been spending his time in our yard as usual, so hopefully he's doing okay. I do wish he wouldn't get in fights. :-/
3. Jasper is just hanging out.
2. Poor Tuxie looks like he got in a scuffle again. Yesterday he came to the door with one eye partially closed and the fur between his eye and ear on that side scraped up. He's looking better today (eye fully open) and unlike some times before where he disappeared for a few days to hunker down, he has been spending his time in our yard as usual, so hopefully he's doing okay. I do wish he wouldn't get in fights. :-/
3. Jasper is just hanging out.
Poem: "Embrace My Fate"
Feb. 22nd, 2026 10:39 pmysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the October 6, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.
Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, sorting through a lair acquired by combat, reference to past abuse, cursed artifacts, damned souls, worry, magical body modification, restraint for safety, awkward emotional discussions, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
( Read more... )
librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, sorting through a lair acquired by combat, reference to past abuse, cursed artifacts, damned souls, worry, magical body modification, restraint for safety, awkward emotional discussions, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
( Read more... )
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order
Feb. 22nd, 2026 09:41 pmysabetwordsmithI picked out what I wanted from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. This catalog has the Safe Seed Pledge, meaning everything is non-GMO/toxin-free. My partner Doug further notes that they have the best, easiest ordering system of all the catalogs we use. Call up the Smart Order Form and when you key in the product number, the rest autofills, tells you if it's still in stock, and lists the price. \o/ Somegeek earned their coffee today!
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
the name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back
Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:15 pmtsuki_no_barai watched miracle last night, about the 1980 olympics and the miracle on ice (when the us hockey team beat the soviets, for them what might not be familiar), so today i had to watch current olympics hockey because they reran the men's gold medal game this afternoon. us-canada, us gets the gold in overtime. very exciting. :D i love that one of the us players, his uncle played on the 1980 team and his grandfather played in 1960 (also a gold medal year). and not only was this the us men's first hockey gold since 1980, we won it on the same day. just, you know, forty-six years later.
(in 1980 i was in the denver airport and when the us team won the crowds of people standing around the gates watching the game on those tvs in the waiting areas lost their collective shit. it's hard to overstate how big a deal it was. i mean aside from the geopolitics the soviet team was highly trained and the us team was made up of college kids who'd only ever played college hockey against each other. which is not to discount their talent and hard work but just that they were trained under a very different system and expectations were very low.)
i'm kind of going to miss the olympics and to be honest i'm really going to miss the olympics themed ads. especally the little girl skating in the attic in front of all her stuffed animals, the other little girl who wants to skate so bad and falls the second she gets on the ice - and then you see her thumbs-up before she hauls herself upright again - and the "we're all on the same team" one. (all the folks in competing sports jerseys giving each other the stink-eye cracks me up.) i'm also going to miss curling being such a big part of the national conversation. and it would've been nice to get another curling medal but i'm not in any way complaining about the silver we did get.
in that vein, have a video about the weird-ass physics of curling stones (among other things). no one can figure out why they spin the way they do.
a farm in vermont has a tournament every year using cheese wheels as curling stones. no word on whether or not the winning team wins its own cheese wheel. if not, it should.
you can learn something from every sport. like that skeleton is the most terrifying sport in the winter olympics, second only to luge. either you go down an ice chute feet first or head first but both are extremely scary options.
so we're in for another storm around here and according to the french toast alert we're doomed. by which i mean A LOT of snow. curling was canceled tonight and tomorrow and the u is closed altho that just means campus is closed but if you can do your job remotely you still have to do it. one of my monday meetings was canceled anyway so we can, in the words of the pi, "enjoy the blizzard". i got food, i got a shovel, i got a metal ruler to measure how much snow lands on my car, i'm prepared. and i missed the last big storm on account of i was in florida so maybe mother nature thinks i'm owed one.
(in 1980 i was in the denver airport and when the us team won the crowds of people standing around the gates watching the game on those tvs in the waiting areas lost their collective shit. it's hard to overstate how big a deal it was. i mean aside from the geopolitics the soviet team was highly trained and the us team was made up of college kids who'd only ever played college hockey against each other. which is not to discount their talent and hard work but just that they were trained under a very different system and expectations were very low.)
i'm kind of going to miss the olympics and to be honest i'm really going to miss the olympics themed ads. especally the little girl skating in the attic in front of all her stuffed animals, the other little girl who wants to skate so bad and falls the second she gets on the ice - and then you see her thumbs-up before she hauls herself upright again - and the "we're all on the same team" one. (all the folks in competing sports jerseys giving each other the stink-eye cracks me up.) i'm also going to miss curling being such a big part of the national conversation. and it would've been nice to get another curling medal but i'm not in any way complaining about the silver we did get.
in that vein, have a video about the weird-ass physics of curling stones (among other things). no one can figure out why they spin the way they do.
a farm in vermont has a tournament every year using cheese wheels as curling stones. no word on whether or not the winning team wins its own cheese wheel. if not, it should.
you can learn something from every sport. like that skeleton is the most terrifying sport in the winter olympics, second only to luge. either you go down an ice chute feet first or head first but both are extremely scary options.
so we're in for another storm around here and according to the french toast alert we're doomed. by which i mean A LOT of snow. curling was canceled tonight and tomorrow and the u is closed altho that just means campus is closed but if you can do your job remotely you still have to do it. one of my monday meetings was canceled anyway so we can, in the words of the pi, "enjoy the blizzard". i got food, i got a shovel, i got a metal ruler to measure how much snow lands on my car, i'm prepared. and i missed the last big storm on account of i was in florida so maybe mother nature thinks i'm owed one.
Just one thing: 23 February 2026
Feb. 22nd, 2026 09:44 pmjazzyjj posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
awesomeersIt's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!