#pidgeling

Even New York has Krispy Kreme (although only a handful around). Heck, the closest donuts to me are Tim Horton's (at the Amoco gas station).

I am so jealous of your Timmy’s, although I hear they’ve gone downhill since being bought out. We do HAVE Krispy Kremes around, I’ve just never seen ‘em and thought they were all in the burbs. Turns out there’s one downtown, however, so I may jaunt out today after my staff meeting to see about procuring a pastry. 

pidgeling

I appreciate that somewhere in us there apparently lies a panic-bread baking gene left unnoticed until now, going by the consistent lack of yeast in all supermarkets

julichris

The gene might be German- my supermarket staggered putting yeast out throughout the day so everybody had a chance to get it. Later they started selling it in way bigger packaging than usual. Flour, too

I think of it more as a general Bread Panic gene; bread is our staff of life and we want to make sure we always have access. It’s why people buy milk, eggs, and bread before a hurricane, after all, and I think a lot of people went “Well, if I can’t go shopping for weeks on end what’s going to get eaten/go bad before then?” and decided they’d better be able to produce their own bread. You can do without eggs and you can freeze milk or buy it powdered, but especially in the US we....we have a strong relationship to baked goods. And powdered bread is, well, yeast and flour. (You can freeze bread, but it takes up a lot of space.)

spiderine

Have you ever read "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner? Actually, "The Sheep Look Up" is more relevant in this case. Either way, you might want to take a look at the structure of those two books. They use a conceit similar to what it seems you may be thinking of. They are also *brilliant* and funny (if dated) looks at overpopulation and endemic disease, respectively. I highly recommend them.

They’re dystopian/post-apocalypse so they’re unfortunately a hard no for actual reading for me, but I did read the summaries and the structure does sound similar to what I’m trying to do. At least for the introduction, which is a sort of fractured collage of early quarantine -- it’s a lot of headlines, emails, and fragments of conversation. 

Stephen King did a similar thing with Carrie, too, and to a lesser extent in many of his other books, where he’ll occasionally throw in a news or police report or a description of a television/radio show -- I was thinking of how he showed the end of American society in The Stand, mainly with newspaper/handbill quotes and transcripts of military communication and radio broadcasts. 

Hopefully Cloud.  I’ll let Sama remark more on it

Cause like... I’m pretty sure Sephiroth would kick the poor things.

On the other hand the idea of the Junimos really liking Sephiroth is fucking hysterical.

“Question.”

Sif looked back over her shoulder.  “Aye?”

“Don’t answer,” Maria said, her attention focused on the road.  She resisted the urge to hit the minivan’s horn.  “It’ll just encourage her.”

“Rude,” Anna said from behind her, as Sif gave Maria a chiding look.

“‘Tis, a bit,” she said, her lips twitching.  “Ask, and you shall have your answer.”

“Can you-”  In the rear view mirror, Maria saw Anna make a lifting motion with both hands.  Sif, confused, shook her head.  “Can you bench press Maria?” Anna asked, and Maria determined to have her fired tomorrow.

“No,” she said, and Sif’s head snapped in her direction.

“You doubt me, beloved?” she asked, a wicked smile curling her lips. 

“She’s Asgardian,” Natasha said from the back seat, where Pepper was slumped over, her head in Natasha’s lap.  “She could bench press this minivan, Anna.”

Anna spread her hands wide.  “Look, I don’t know, I’ve only met one Asgardian, and he’s all kind of special.”

“I can find no fault to your words,” Sif agreed, laughter rolling through the words.  “Rude they may be, but not dishonest.”

“And that’s a perfect way to describe Anna as well,” Maria said.  “Do not pick up the minivan.”

“At least let us get out of the minivan first,” Pepper said.

“She won’t let us get out of the minivan first,” Jane said, with the voice of a woman well resigned to Asgardians.  

“I’m fine with still being in the minivan,” Anna said.  Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged.  “It’s for SCIENCE, people.”

“What’s for science?  Seeing how many people you know can pick you up?” Maria asked.  “Because half the people on this hellish little outting can pick you up.”  In the lane next to them, Misty’s car went barreling past.  Maria was trying very hard not to think about Lewis and Bobbi in the back seat with Jones.  Because that was the stuff that nightmares were made of.

“I demand proof of this,” Anna said.

“Fine, me first, I’m going to pitch you into the nearest ditch,” Maria muttered, and Sif leaned back in her chair, laughing out loud now.

“Such unkindness, beloved.”  She propped one foot on the dashboard, and the lights of the streetlamps outside flashed along the length of her exposed leg.  “Does that mean you prefer I leave you with your fine feet on the ground?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Maria eyed the gorgeous line of her thigh.  Her face felt hot.  “Well.  It is for science.”

“For SCIENCE!” Sif crowed, and behind them, someone took up the chant.

“Science, science, science!” In the far back, Pepper was pumping an arm above her head and Nat was laughing, her head thrown back.  Anna kicked the back of Maria’s seat with both feet.

Jane rolled down her window, sticking her head out to howl, “SCIENCE!”

“As a war cry, it is most refined,” Sif said to Maria.

“Do not bench press me,” Maria told her.

Sif’s lower lip poked out in the smallest, saddest little pout.  “Not even when we are alone?” she asked, her head tipped to the side.  She draped one hand over the curve of her upthrust knee, her long fingers smoothing against the skin of her inner thigh.

My Dad's had that same thermostat for over like 2 years now and he only stopped crowing about the same exact things you are doing like... a month ago

It is a VERY dad thing to do. When I heard the heat come on this morning right around the time I had programmed it to do so, I had a little “yes!” moment :D

banesidhe replied to your post “Less Sad News”

Lawl. Wait until you realize you can PRE HEAT your home on anticipation of you coming home from work! "Oh the house is 65 right now, no that wont do, i need it to be 74 when i walk in the door."

See, my old thermostat was programmable to some extent, at the Bartment -- it had Wake, Leave, Return, and Sleep. And I totally did set it so that “return” got the place heated up for me :D but this is a lot more granular, so I can set it to be warm when I get home and then gradually cool down until bed. 

pidgeling replied to your post “Less Sad News”

My brain had a HUGE scrambled moment and read 'receive weather reports' as 'receive e-sports' and i was impressed and yet confused why you'd want to get your sports news from your thermostat.

LOL! “Good morning Sam, the temperature is 46F, in your room it is 68F, and the Bears lost last night’s game.”

If I could program it to just randomly start playing coverage of the Cubs whenever they had a game, no lie, I’d enjoy that. 

dorkilybeautiful replied to your photoset “They’ve found me.”

Your windows open. You can make them a wee feeder.

I plan to! Well, ok, I can’t install anything in the windows or on the sills (condo board rules, they’re very finicky about windows -- can’t hang anything but white drapes in them either). But I’m going to pick up some seeds and such and lay it out on the sills. 

But not this morning because there is a VICIOUS thunderstorm going on.

wandererriha replied to your photoset “They’ve found me.”

Beware. The Good Feathers know where you live.

that's so cute! Is there a story for the little friend?

His name is Kirby and he’s based on this weird stuffed creature I have.  I found it years and years ago at walmart on the discount shelf after easter.  He has this weird liminal feeling to him because I have no idea what he’s supposed to be (I always kinda assumed a cow maybe? but he also has a long tail with a big puffy pompom) and he just never seemed to belong anywhere.

I'mma be honest I spent a good two minutes trying to figure which side the head was on. I thought I was looking at a reverse cat-dog situation.

I’m a sucker for Sidon/Link because Sidon is so! excited! about everything Link does, and also Zelda/Urbosa, even if it’s somewhat controversial, b/c who wouldn’t be gay for Urbosa and also she doesn’t treat Zelda like a princess but is still v. affectionate.

Sidon is a precious fishboy cinnamon roll who needs to be protected at all costs.