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merriamwebster_feed) wrote2025-07-05 01:00 amcantankerous
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 5, 2025 is:
cantankerous • \kan-TANK-uh-rus\ • adjective
A cantankerous person is often angry and annoyed, and a cantankerous animal or thing is difficult or irritating to deal with.
// Although the former postman was regarded by some townspeople as a scowling, cantankerous old coot, he was beloved by neighborhood children, to whom he would regularly hand out butterscotch candies from his front stoop with a twinkle in his eye.
Examples:
“The film ‘Hard Truths,’ which opens in New York on Friday and nationwide in January, centers on [Marianne] Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy, a cantankerous middle-aged woman who spits venom at unsuspecting shop assistants, bald babies, her 20-something son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her dentist, among others.” — Simran Hans, The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2024
Did you know?
A person described as cantankerous may find it more difficult than most to turn that frown upside down, while a cantankerous mule/jalopy/etc. is difficult to deal with—it may not turn in your desired direction. It’s been speculated that cantankerous is a product of the obsolete word contack, meaning “contention,” under the influence of a pair of “difficult” words still in use: rancorous and cankerous. Rancorous brings the anger and “bitter deep-seated ill will” (as rancor can be understood to mean), and cankerous brings the perhaps understandable foul mood: a cankerous person suffers from painful sores—that is, cankers.
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aurumcalendula) wrote2025-07-04 11:38 pm(no subject)
battleshipmod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
battleshipex2025-07-04 11:10 pmFAQ and Guide for Battleship Newcomers
nanslice) wrote2025-07-04 07:58 pm(no subject)
SO YEAH THAT'S GREAT wow, lmao, I'm so. Frustrated. And I have a bachelor's degree and I was like but I have a bachelor's degree, I was able to focus and do that, and she was like yes, in something you're interested in (art). And I was like well okay. :\ This explains a lot but I'm not super thrilled.
UHM YEAH so yeah. I have a PCP appointment on the 17th to do blood work and maybe look at blood pressure medication, but also to talk about a medication that my ADHD doc would like me to go on (that's not a stimulant, bc we gotta get blood pressure in order, plus I gotta talk to the hospital in GA for records bc I have a bigeminy and ADHD doc wants to look at those results before putting me on stimulants (although there is a non-stimulant medication that she recommended to try first). BUT she thinks my problems with staying and committing to work is agoraphobia and/or a panic disorder. Uhm. So yeah, my poor brain is a goddamn mess lmao whoops.
Will has been an absolute trooper through all though, even though I keep making terrible jokes about them being stuck with me now that we're married. XD Although they have suspected this probably longer than I have so none of this is that much of a surprise for them.
In other news, today is July fourth, I'm not feeling patriotic at all, and the fireworks aren't helping. But here's some recent harvest photos.
A couple of zucchini and 2 quarts of cherries. <3
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-07-04 09:13 pm
Fireworks
( Read more... )
mecurtin) wrote2025-07-04 10:09 pmPurrcy; WSFS
Purrcy the tuxedo tabby stands on a light green bathmat on a terracotta tile floor with glossy green accents, looking back up over his shoulder with an adorably demanding face. His tail is a thwapping blur. A white person's naked foot is barely visible behind him, as though they're sitting down in the bathroom for some reason.
Politics has of course been super stressful, I'll write up something under separate cover tomorrow or something.
Today, all afternoon, I attended the first session of the WSFS Business Meeting, which was as almost as emotionally draining as attending one in person but much more convenient. The Chair, Jesi Lipp (they/them) is a *master* at running a meeting and parsing rules quickly & logically.
Result for me: the Hugo Process Committee is continuing for another year (including me by default), and also stuff that I insisted on digging out & including in our report conforms to the second part of C.2 Dude, Where’s My Motion?, even though it wasn't required yet & wasn't even aware it was under consideration, just because it seemed so obviously necessary. So I definitely can bask, feeling like I made a real & meaningful contribution.
I've pledged the family not to overdo it for Hugo Process Committee 2.0, but I *am* going to maybe be the one insisting that we have regularly scheduled meetings & an agenda.
dialecticdreamer) wrote2025-07-04 10:05 pm
Layers of the Law (part 1 of 1, complete)
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1361
[Wednesday, 2 August, 2017, 5:30 p.m.]
:: More law enforcement personnel arrive to speak to the Cort parents. It quickly becomes a problem. Part of the Unfair Trades arc in Mercedes, within the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::
The door to the conference room opened without a warning knock.
The man who stepped inside wore a crisp, dark gray suit and a bone-white dress shirt. He opened his mouth to speak, glaring toward Maurwen, who was helping a groggy Theo into a clean shirt. “What’s that witness doing here? She’s supposed to be kept--”
Elisabeth Finn and Robert Cort stepped forward at the same moment. “You have no right to barge in on a medical consultation,” Robert snapped.
( Read more... )
ndrosen) wrote2025-07-04 08:16 pmHappy Birthday and Get Well Soon
I saw a cartoon recently in the form of a card saying “Get well soon,” addressed to the GOP, and signed by John McCain.
Get well soon, dear country. Please recover from your infatuation with a demagogue and buffoon. He isn’t good enough for you, dear country. He doesn’t really love you, or appreciate what makes you special, even though he says he’ll make you great again. He’s likely to hurt you badly if you let him. And it’s not just him: even after he dies, or loses an election, or is exposed, impeached, and removed from office, there will be others like him, trying to follow in his footsteps. There will also be radicals of the left, claiming to be the alternative to him and his pack of sycophants, fascists, and alt-right cockroaches.
I’d like to say you’re better than that, but let’s face it: sometimes you haven’t been. Sometimes you’ve given your affections to demagogues, Klanscum, and fools before. And yet, you have ideals and worthy traditions, even if you haven’t always lived up to them. Sometimes you have listened to the better angels of your nature, elected wise and decent men, even if they were flawed as all mortals are flawed, set injustices to right, and left the demagogues of the left and right to harangue supporters gathered in telephone booths.
Nonetheless, I have hope for you. Happy Birthday, many happy returns, and may better birthdays come. May you come to reject the yahoos, give ear to the wise, and address your real problems.
Thus I wrote seven years ago. I don’t think that I imagined at the time that Donald Trump, after losing the 2020 election, attempting an autogolpe, and failing to cling to power, would become the second man in American history to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms as President, and bring with him a worse gang of “sycophants, fascists, and alt-right cockroaches” than he had the first time. As has been said, truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. I still have the hope I expressed in the final paragraph of my earlier post, but I find the situation grimmer than before.
My optimistic scenario is that the real estate bubble bursts on schedule (2026), whereupon the huge national debt and persistent deficits combine with the real estate crash to give us a financial crisis and a really major recession, discrediting the administration in power. (People tend to blame the current president for whatever goes wrong with the economy, whether or not he actually bears much responsibility.) People who don’t care that Trump lacks respect for the Constitution, and think that he’s a brilliant businessman and self-made billionaire, rather than a complete phony and grifter who inherited a pile of money, and is now senile, may change their minds about him when they’re thrown out of work, inflation skyrockets, and he and his lackeys prove unable to fix anything. Even then, our problems won’t be over, because the Democrats mostly don’t have good economic policies either. And then there are Russia and China . . .
Pessimistically, Trump and his handlers might use a crisis as an opportunity to crush the political opposition, impose martial law, and cancel elections.
People have endured and survived worse conditions than we’re suffering now, and sometimes triumphed over adversity and grave evils. We should face our serious dangers with awareness, but we should try to keep stout hearts, and accomplish what we can.
ndrosen) wrote2025-07-04 08:03 pmCookie Dough and Other Stuff
hurtcomfortexmod) wrote in hurtcomfortex2025-07-04 08:00 pmCollection is Open!
Please go, read and view, comment and kudos! The collection will stay open for treats.
If there is an issue with your gift please e-mail us at hurtcomfortexmod@gmail.com right away.
And thank you to everyone who participated and made this year possible, especially our pinch hitters!
nnozomi) wrote in guardian_learning2025-07-04 06:34 pm第四年第一百七十六天
十 part 3
华, magnificent/China; 协, to cooperate; 卑, vulgar/base ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=24
语法
[Back to review from the elementary levels with a new grammar site. If anyone has any other ideas/requests, I am totally open to any and all suggestions, there's only so much I can think up!]
Using 的
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/modifier-de-noun/
词汇
玩具, toy (pinyin in tags)
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/
Guardian:
我会怀念你这颗卑鄙自私的心, I'm going to miss your base, selfish heart
赵云澜是您的儿子，沈巍也是我的老师, Zhao Yunlan is your son and Shen Wei is my teacher
[no 玩具]
Me:
他的名字是印尼的，但是其实他是华侨。
别玩坏你弟弟的玩具！
adafrog) wrote in fandom_checkin2025-07-04 05:38 pmDaily Check In.
How are you doing?
I am okay
11 (52.4%)
I am not okay, but don't need help right now
10 (47.6%)
I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans are you living with?
I am living single
6 (28.6%)
One other person
8 (38.1%)
More than one other person
7 (33.3%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
rolanni) wrote2025-07-04 05:46 pmFriday Afternoon
Odd day. Wrote +/-1850 words after throwing out the words I wrote yesterday, which, yes, sounds like a waste, but in fact was not because if I hadn't written those words, I wouldn't have known they were the wrong ones, and forced the boys in the basement to Do Better. What I need to do now is piecing so I can see the Big Picture, so to speak. I'm not unhappy with what I've done so far, and very glad I had a whole day to bear down. Today's labors brings the total WIP to +/-47,760 words.
I'm pretty tired from all that bearing down, so no more new words today, and honestly? I may leave the piecing til tomorrow, too.
In Writing Adjacent News, I've applied for a place as an author in the Bangor Book Fair, in December. I have very little chance of being accepted, but, yanno, none if I don't fill out the form.
I see that the credit union is replacing my credit card with a Whole Nother credit card (not just a renewal of the existing card), come August, which means I need to move the things I have on auto-pay somewhere else. What fun. Also, it looks like I need to find if I have any so-called "rewards" on the existing card and, if so, clean them out, as the new card will not have rewards, but it will have a very respectable 9.9% interest rate.
I also have some mail to answer, but I keep losing the list until I'm too tired to write a coherent letter. Maybe if I put it under my tea mug, I'll see it first thing tomorrow. It's a plan.
I had a turkey burger and baked beans for lunch, and I have discovered that turkey burgers are limp and hard to manage, and also don't taste that great. I still have three of the dern things, but I figure they can be broken into pieces, since they want to do that anyway, mixed in with other things and thereby made to taste better. I mean, I do know that you can't have chicken and mushroom dumplings every day, but I had expected a little better from the turkey burgers.
It's been a cool(er) and breezy, so I have the windows in my office open, and I've been enjoying the company of all four cats most of the day.
. . . and that's the report from the Confusion Factory.
Hope everyone's had a nice Friday and/or holiday.
Friday Census and Proof of Life:
ranunculus) wrote2025-07-04 01:28 pmFirefly
I groomed and saddled Firefly, putting her bridle on over her halter, then moving the reins to the halter, not the bit. We walked out a little way to meet Carrie and I got on. For the first few yards Firefly was a tiny bit fussy. We were headed back toward home and she DID NOT want to go home. The minute it was clear we were going somewhere else she perked up. Honestly, for most of the ride I felt like I was on an old experienced trail horse. She was as good as gold. She looked carefully at the bank we had to walk down and then went down quietly. She looked carefully at the rather steep stream crossing and then walked quietly and carefully across, no jumping, no trying to move fast, just perfect. At one point she did spook a bit at a particularly black and suspicious cow pat. When I say "spook" I mean she stopped, looked at the cow pat , tensed up a tiny bit, looked at it again, put her head around to my boot to ask me if everything was ok, and when I said it was and encouraged her; she sniffed it, relaxed and walked on. That is the first time she has clearly asked for reassurance from me while I was mounted. Perfect. We rode through the herd of cows, passing several within a few feet with no incident. We watched the flock of turkeys without a spook or moving away, or any drama except stopping and looking. I never for an instant felt I needed to move the reins to the bit for more control, in fact quite the opposite. She accepted light contact with the reins and went where I directed her.
I'm thrilled. Maybe we will have issues next time, but for the mile we rode she was delightful. Very slow when we turned for home, but that was enough for one day.
ranunculus) wrote2025-07-04 10:50 amGarden Notes
The first okra will be ready tonight or tomorrow morning.
Picked the first cucumber today, it was a pickling cucumber. The lemon cucumber, which was planted quite late, has started blooming. Meanwhile one of the Japanese thin skinned varieties, Shinto Kiwa has tiny fruit all over. Somehow I planted two of that kind and both vines are growing vigorously.
I'm ready to pull out the "Smooth Criminal" yellow squash. I don't like it's flavor or size. Ditto another summer squash, Zucchinio. Zuchinio is supposed to be both a summer squash and, if allowed to get big, a winter squash. As a summer squash it just tastes like it is green, with no other redeeming qualities. I'll replace it with another Butternut.
This morning, pre-snake activities, I added some big logs to the bottom of the 6' tank. Over the top of the wood is lots and lots of old potting soil and coconut coir mixed together. All that got wet down a little and then I added a nice layer of moisture holding, native soil that is rich in clay and mixed it in a little. Next: drip irrigation followed by planting, followed by horse manure for moisture retention.
redbird) wrote in thisfinecrew2025-07-04 04:19 pm(no subject)
A post about spreading the word about the June 14 protests
chestnutpod posted links to two grass-roots jail-support organizationsLink to a Republican congressman's op-ed against Trump's big bill
Contacting the Department of Energy about section 504"
a guide to writing to ICE detainees
toastykitten posted several links to anti-war stuffOrganizing a Congressional district office visit
Some ideas to block the horrible reconciliation bill
Thanks to everyone who posted.
Here's a poll to tell us what you've been doing:
This month, I
called one of my senators
4 (57.1%)
called my other senator
4 (57.1%)
called my congressmember
2 (28.6%)
called my governor
1 (14.3%)
called my mayor, state rep, or other local official
0 (0.0%)
diddid get-out-the-vote work, such as postcarding or phone banking
1 (14.3%)
voted
0 (0.0%)
sent sent a postcard/email/letter/fax to a government official or agency
3 (42.9%)
went to a protest
5 (71.4%)
attended an in-person activist group
1 (14.3%)
went to a town hall
0 (0.0%)
participated in phone or online training
0 (0.0%)
donated money to a cause
3 (42.9%)
worked for a campaign
0 (0.0%)
did textbanking/phonebanking
0 (0.0%)
took care of myself
4 (57.1%)
not a US citizen, but worked in solidarity in my community
0 (0.0%)
did something else (tell us about it in comments)
0 (0.0%)
committed to action in the coming month
2 (28.6%)
As always, everyone is free to make posts about any issues and actions they think the comm should know about. You can also drop some information into a comment to our sticky post if you'd like the mods to do it.
If you're looking for information on anything else, you can use our tags to check for any ongoing actions or resources relevant to the issues you care about. I try to keep the tag list up-to-date. If you need a tag added, you can DM me.