Mendocino, September 2026.

Caspar, September 2026.

For the second year in a row, our white amaryllis is flowering. The trick seems to be to stop watering it in December, let all the leaves fall off, and then recommence watering as soon as the flower shoot appears.

I wonder what projects of our own might flower if given a chance, first, to die back.

My dad has introduced a new wrinkle in my recipe for toasted oats: he toasts them in a wide cast iron skillet. I’ve tried it, and there’s something to it. I think the broader surface area means the oats toast faster and more evenly. Thought you should know.

Someone put these posters up in San Francisco:

Someone put these posters up around the neighborhood.

I found Hearn’s piece through Today in Tabs, where I also found a link to some free anti-ICE posters that I printed out onto vinyl sticker paper and cut out. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with them.

Apropos of nothing at all, I found this bit of math I must have worked on in 2020.

Do please double-check my figures. And while you’re at it, ponder a minute on the question: does anyone really need a dollar more than more than $999M?

Feel-good chaser: A super-cut of ICE agents slipping on ice.

When it gets real gloomy and wet, why not head for a nearby hill, right at nightfall, and indulge in some fog-bathing?

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a great book. But man, could I love this reissue’s cover any more?

(Spotted at the surprisingly fun Barnes & Noble at the Grove.)

If you see them in a grocery store, why not buy some kiwifruit, quarter them, peel their hairy skin, and slurp down a few wedges of alien-green, tart-sweet flesh?

Last week when I wrote about reading a Big Winter Book™ and taking lots of baths, I somehow neglected to include the reference photograph of Mason & Dixon resting upon the requisite next-to-bath hand-drying towel. I apologize for the oversight.

I’ve been reading the pamphlet, Radical Witchcraft: Oppression and Resistance, which I picked up a few years ago at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall. Lots of good stuff, including this Hitler pincushion:

According to the booklet,

Several types of this pin cushion were sold in the US. They quickly became popular after President Roosevelt acquired one for this desk.

Somehow I had never heard about this half-silly, half-serious act of antifascist magic in the Oval Office. Tuck it away in the “Magic and Resistance” file.

Less useful tip but more pleasureable: you can turn Apple Maps on your phone into a fidget spinner just by engaging streetview and looking straight up. (Sadly, Google Maps doesn’t let you whip around nearly as fast.)

To whoever designed this institutional thermometer’s legend, I tip my cap. That butt! That snail! That crawling child!!!

Related: a skit titled “We’re the New York Times!”