Shadow Update: Hosting & Bedding

Mar. 22nd, 2026 06:40 pm
jesse_the_k: central cone filled with soft spikes, tired lavender petals droop straight down (coneflower mid August)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

We were delighted by Shadow’s response to his first visitors last night. We kept him crated until they’d seated themselves ready to watch the first two eps of Slings & Arrows. He made not a peep when they arrived nor during our typically uproarious dinner. Once we let him out of the crate, he observed them closely. One guest had recently enjoyed a hot-and-sour sauce on her egg roll. She invited him closer and he licked her hands! He permitted the other to pet his back. He curled up in his bed (immediately below the TV) and peacefully admired the assembled multitude.

Early this AM MyGuy placed one of Shadow’s beds on my side of our bed. Around 6AM he tip tip tap tipped into the bedroom and curled up in it, keeping me company for 45 minutes.

He was in the breezeway with MyGuy 20 minutes ago, having just come back from his evening constitutional. Just as his lead was unhooked, the leonine March wind blew open the door to the backyard. Shadow was out like a shot. MyGuy called him back, but he kept backing up. At last, MyGuy leaned on the garage holding the door open, and Shadow scooted right back in to the breezeway.

The wisdom around rescues is a rule of 3: 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn routines, and 3 months to feel fully at home. We’re on track.

(Got to get some Shadow icons!)

Sucreabeille: Wake The Dead

Mar. 21st, 2026 07:55 pm
brigid: drawing of two women, one whispering to the other (Default)
[personal profile] brigid
I'm making an effort to try new things and one of those ongoing new things is trying different scents.

This is more of a challenge than it might seem to most people because I am utterly repulsed by some very common scents, and also some very common scents are major migraine triggers. A lot of it is "chemicals" like room spray, especially bathroom spray, and cheap aerosol perfumes but some natural stuff like stargazer lilies also trigger them. It's fun! It's a fun time! (It's not a fun time.)

Perfume oils don't tend to have the same effect, maybe because I'm so rarely exposed to them. They cling close to the skin, an intimate secret. That intimacy is another reason I like perfume oils - I don't want to make other people smell me, whether it's a scent I think is pleasant (perfume) or one I don't (body odor, garlic sweat, etc.).

I've been getting subscription bags from Sucreabeille (no, that's not a referral link or anything) which means I've been getting fun little surprises. It's a nice thing to look forward to and so far I've had at least one perfume I've really liked out of each batch. And since each subscription bag costs about the price of one perfume, and has more than one perfume... it's good odds. Also I am a sucker for gacha pulls.

It's early spring, but one of the scents I got is Wake The Dead: Spanish coffee, bitter caramel, lavender syrup, soft amber, spice .

It doesn't quite smell like autumn, but it smells autumn adjacent if that makes sense. It's a warm heavy scent, soft, almost snuggly but with a bit of an edge to it. It's a scent I could sink in to; it's the olfactory equivalent of a comfortable sweater.

I don't pick up the coffee scent at all, unless "Spanish coffee" is something I'm not familiar with that's different from drip coffee/espresso. The bitter sweet absolutely comes through. I don't pick up on the lavender syrup much, unless it's adding to the sweetness - if there's anything floral here it's lurking in the background. The spice is nice and mellow.

I'm looking forward to wearing this when it's cold again, but right now I'm more in the mood for light smells. Not so much florals perhaps, but petrichor and green things and maybe honey.



Perfume Master List

The Friday Five: Journal History

Mar. 20th, 2026 04:14 pm
jesse_the_k: comic me in bed with cukes on eyes (JK loves cucumbers)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

From that reliable source of journal prompts, [community profile] thefridayfive

1) What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

Volunteered for WisCon in 2007, clearly LJ was where everything was Happening. Took me a year to figure out the culture. Moved to DW on 1 May 2009.

2) How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

79! Most are evidently dormant. (DW comms never die.)

3) Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

I love the questions and answers at [community profile] little_details, where writers seek specifics about an infinite assortment of facts: paint manufacturing, historical Chinese tornadoes, NZ slang for three examples.

4) How did you pick your user name?

It’s a riff on my wallet name which I’ve been using it since 2001.

5) If you could change your user name, would you?

Nope.

Day 21: Shadow Continues to Mellow

Mar. 16th, 2026 02:11 pm
jesse_the_k: harbor seal's head captioned "seal of approval" (Approval)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

While he was quite surprised to walk out for his morning on-leash ablutions into heavy snow above his knees, he's really starting to relax.

This morning I reached down to stroke his back and he didn't flinch.

Just now I was resting on the floor by his bed, petting his back. I started to scritch the scruff of his neck, and he relaxed even more, his dark eyes shining up at MyGuy behind the camera. (I'm reclining on my tripled-up exercise pad just behind him, shockingly without glasses.)

Read more... )

Only 28 days of enforced rest to go!

mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.

We Have a Tail Wag!

Mar. 12th, 2026 05:02 pm
jesse_the_k: ACD Lucy holds two blue racketballs in her mouth, side by side; captioned "I did it!" (LUCY success)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

On his second day, Shadow wandered into our bedroom and leapt up on the bed. I made my creaky crane eh-eh sound which is the closest I get to saying "no" to a dog and he hopped right off. (Clearly, he's had some training.)

This morning we were resting in bed and he stood in our bedroom doorway. I said "Shadow come!" and he stepped inside! And wagged his tail! and then immediately turned around and went back to his crate.

But his tail can wag.

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