Jackie has an Old Fashioned, while I’m drinking a 3 Floyd’s Zombie Dust, a decent pale ale that sounded more interesting than any of the IPAs on tap.
2025-10-20 12:42
Category: Photography
Zine-fest and Fungus-fest!
Jackie and I spent an hour or so at the zine-fest at Lincoln Square, and then another hour or so at the fungus-fest at Anita Purvis Nature Center.
The highlight of the zine-fest, of course, was Tony who was there with his Alphistia zines:
But there was other stuff as well. Teacupweeb was there (sadly with no new Birb stuff). There were at least three people who made fancy stickers, of which I purchased several:
I really liked the Steller’s Jay, and the raccoon was suitably scary. (Raccoons are terrifying. The have hands, and they work in teams. If they learn to smelt metal, humanity is doomed.) I thought Steven would appreciate the Ax-olotol (swinging a big ax). (I didn’t get him one though. I’m going to put mine on my laptop.)
The big fungus sticker at the bottom was from the zine-fest. The smaller ones higher up were from the fungus-fest.
The zine-fest was great fun!
We had great fun at the fungus-fest as well! We got the stickers (see above). We also each bought an Illinois Mycological Association t-shirt! (Mine is printed with glow-in-the-dark ink, which I’m expecting to enjoy very much, once it gets dark.)
Among the many other activities, there was a woman using stencils to paint mushrooms on people’s arms. Jackie and I each got one done. With sparkles!
We also got in a walk along the boardwalk in Busey Woods, which is always a good walk. I neglected to get any pictures of that, but it was fun even so.
Great fun! I’d recommend either fest for next year!
2025-10-07 9:55
At the orthopedics place there are close handicap spaces, then these less-close, but still central spaces. But really shouldn’t there be distant spaces “Reserved for persons with unlimited mobility”?
I’m not explosive at all
For an athlete, being explosive is good. You can jump higher, run faster, hit harder, and (the point of this post) thrust a sword more quickly. Sadly, I’m perhaps the least explosive person around. This is very frustrating when it comes to sword fighting, because my thrusts aren’t quick enough to hit my opponent, whereas their thrusts are quick enough to hit me, before I can parry them.
I can obviously compensate in various ways. I can try and be very deceptive, and then launch an attack that is so surprising my opponent can’t react. I can get very good at parrying, so I can stop an attack with a very small movement that doesn’t have to be so quick. I’m working on these things.
But one other thing I can do is work on explosiveness.
This will have other advantages too. Explosiveness (roughly the same thing as power) is an aspect of muscular strength that disappears early as one ages, and it’s very useful. Just being strong is great, if you want to lift something heavy, but power (or explosiveness) is what you need if you catch your toe, and then want to get your foot out in front of you before you fall down.
I’m going to have to do some research on training for explosiveness, but one exercise that I already know that I can start training right away will be to throw my slam ball. Some people do that facing a wall, so they can catch it and throw it again. But I think I’ll throw it, and then spring forward as fast as possible to pick it up and throw it again, so I can train both explosive arm strength and explosive leg strength.
2025-09-06 11:35
Onions, three kinds of peppers, and some breakfast sausage, sautéd, two scrambled eggs, a little taco sauce, then wrapped in tortillas.
I call the breakfast dish Wavy Rancheros.
2025-09-05 12:04
Two things I’m allergic to are ragweed pollen (which is at its annual peak right about now), and household dust (which has been at a peak this morning, because I’ve been decluttering, dusting, and vacuuming in the living room).
Although wearing a mask is an obvious move to minimize getting household dust in my nose when I’m doing housework, I usually don’t think of it until my nose is all snuffly. Today though, I remembered. And it worked great! No snuffling at all!
2025-08-31 7:34
There’s a reason they call it the golden hour.
2025-08-17 08:54
Me: You’re a good girl Ashley! There’s no girl good-gooder than you! You’re the good-gooderest!
Jackie: Good-gooderest?
Me: Do you know a girl that’s good-gooder? If not, she’s the good-gooderest.
Personifications of allegorical figures
I have long been a big fan of allegorical figures, such as these two outside the Chicago Board of Trade.
My education in such things was slightly deficient. I mean, every educated person ought to be able to look at such a figure and identify it by the signifiers, the way nearly everybody can recognize Liberty and Justice. These two are only slightly more obscure, so I was able to identify them. (Especially in context—they are particularly appropriate for the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded.)
There are many more that I can’t reliably recognize—Fame, Victory, Hope, Time, etc. I’ve looked from time to time to find a nice compact reference with pictures and descriptions, and haven’t found exactly what I was looking for.
In any case, it was fun to see these two, just across the street from the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, where we had gone to visit the Money Museum—about which I hope to write a post soon.
Unexpected Lollapalooza
We scheduled this trip to be here for the opening of the tapestry exhibit that includes work by Jackie’s teacher. We were completely unaware that Lollapalooza would be here this weekend as well.
I must say though, I’ve really enjoyed the sidewalk views of girls barely wearing party dresses and glitter. Particularly amusing are the girls unaccustomed to wearing such short skirts and shorts—detectable because they keep trying to tug the garment down, in a vain effort to cover their butt.
Five stars. Would attend again.