dress diary update

Yeah, so the jute-corded stays I did a couple weeks back, in the off-white linen/cotton, to wear with my non-supportive garb? Not so supportive. I'd had high hopes for the straps helping out, but they didn't really... do enough. Having tried on the blue kirtle bodice with real hemp cord, and found it so much more supportive, I decided to revisit these sad floppy little jute bodies, because I did spend hours and hours and hours on them.
I bought the biggest cable ties I could find-- 14"-- in a 100-pack.

I just went back and put 33 cable ties into the boning channels. I had to unpick some hand-sewn seams-- I know, boo-hoo. I hate doing that. Machine ones, oh well, it was ten seconds' work. Hand-sewn means dammit, I probably stabbed myself and bled four times on this eight-inch stretch alone, and if I undo this bit, how far back will it ravel, and can I put a new knot in it?
They're much, much less floppy now, and can stand up on their own more or less, which I think should be sufficient.

I like/hate this photo because you can see why I need extra support in my stupid garb. I'm wearing a swimsuit top that doesn't fit properly today because it's really hot and humid. Not... the most flattering look.


I gotta sew the edges back down and fix the straps and try them on, but I'm sure they'll be much better now at actually controlling my jugs of doom. (Ever since I got measured as a J-cup I've figured I should say "jugs" for the alliteration. I suppose the letters need to stand for something, right? ... I was just making up an alphabet of them but I'm stuck on E. B is easy... G, H, J aren't a problem (why do most manufacturers skip I, incidentally? I would probably be an I, if they had it...)... C, D, E are all problematic... Anyway. I probably don't really want whatever search traffic would bring people to this page if I really listed them all. Never mind. Jugs it is.

Which segues into an amusing story, because I think it's always time for amusing stories. So my mom's a Spanish teacher. Someone gave her Spanish magnetic poetry. Spanish magnetic poetry is problematic because the verbs conjugate. You know how English magnetic poetry comes with little endings that say "s" and "ing" and "ed" and that sort of thing? Spanish comes with verb stems and verb endings separate.
Yeah, so you can't actually just randomly make something unless you actually know Spanish. Meaning nobody ever wrote anything with the magnetic poetry on the fridge because Mom was the only one who was ever in the house whose Spanish was up to matching up verb stems with the endings. The rest of us barely remember anything, or never knew it in the first place.

Z walks up to the fridge and looks at what is essentially gibberish. After a moment, he lights up, and begins rearranging tiles.

My mom's fridge said this for over a year (space indicates new tile):

Yo ! Enormes jug s !

short story review

Just a quick review: For any Martha Wells fans (marthawells), the final installment in her trio of Giliead and Ilias pre-Ile-Rien Trilogy short stories is out, published in Black Gate 12. Issue 10 had a typical thrilling Gil/Ilias adventure wizard-hunting a couple of years before the books, Issue 11 had their first meeting as children (and a cracking good adventure to boot), and this one?
( if you're about to read it, I'll cut so you're not in the slightest bit spoiled; otherwise, I'm just going to gush about it in specific )

Anyway, I'm very sorry she seems not to be doing any more of these, because they're like little gems, each one, and I've been looking forward to this one for months. Black Gate, a quarterly publication, isn't something to which it would have occurred to me to subscribe otherwise, but a lot of the other stories in the four issues I've gotten (I got a yearly subscription to get the three Wells stories) have been interesting. Many of them are series as well-- freestanding, but serial, telling the adventures of various other recurring characters. A few of them have stood out enough for me to go back and re-read them, which I rarely do except for my Favorite Favories...
It's been a wonderful way to spend more time with these characters I enjoy so much, in this wonderful rich world, and I shall be very sorry to have no more opportunities to visit it. But apparently Wells has been working on a new fantasy novel set in a different world, so it is fair to say that she is ready to move on, and we shall have to trust her to make something equally as wonderful as Cineth and the Syprians.