Bioinformatics

It's, er, been a minute!

What it's been is the 'fifth season', the '[most beautiful|super*|insert-dialectical-superlative][3-6] days' preceding** lent. Since here all we do is eat pancakes (why don't we party in the UK? I don't know) I have been watching various videos, mostly from Luzern because there at least I can sometimes** follow what's being said. Spouse suggests that the number of brass bands per capita goes some way towards explaining why (newer builds, at least) tend to have good sound insulation.

( footnotes )

(I got about halfway through an English summary of that video, but idk if anyone would be interested in me finishing & posting it?)

What else have I been up to? Uhh. ( sad )

Work, at which I am of course fantastic and even occasionally actually finish things, unlike the entire rest of my life. Not being potentially-redundant (for a few days it looked like we might be because the comms around the whole thing have been terrible, and yet again the media describe the cuts as only affecting 'management' which is just untrue).

Failing to comment on things / reply to comments despite wanting to.

Waking the dawn is going about like this:
- What Guaeth is worried about: has Hanno just given himself a concussion walking into the overhang?
- What Guaeth should be worried about: has Hanno just roofied himself?

At this distance, he's no longer quite sure how much of it was an act, on Guae's part. Not quite enough, on his own, which is - one hell of a thing to know about himself.

It would be easier to blame the crown if he didn't keep catching himself thinking some innocuous kindness might be the kind of oblique invitation he probably shouldn't have acted on then, and certainly shouldn't now. Even just asking might be - too much pressure.

Too much to ask, of the one who let him get away with it, especially from such a - shoddy excuse for a lover. Especially when he isn't even wholly sure it would help; if control were a reliable substitute for trust and safety, every passage-house custodian would know about it, even if only as a fall-back tool for... difficult cases. And Hanno's been a difficult case often enough to know that the usual approach is - almost entirely the opposite.

Craft stuff, I think by some people's definitions I made a baby quilt yesterday? (I didn't really; I did the patchwork yesterday (bar cutting and the first round of pinning, which was earlier in the week or maybe last week, idk). I gather people sometimes outsource the assembly-of-layers part and consider that a separate thing? Which honestly does make sense given anything much bigger would need a different machine or to be done by hand.) But still: there is not yet a quilt for nibling #2. Mind you nibling #2 isn't here yet either so I have a few weeks in theory. I would like to get it pinned today at least, having worked out that I've definitely already prewashed the fabric I'm planning to use as backing.
[Reasons this post keeps not getting posted: it has just occurred to me that I do need to prewash the edging tape, brb putting that in the machine now.]

"Have you got some offcuts to replace Teddy's shirt?" said my mother, a few months ago; I still do not 100% understand the provenance of Teddy, who was probably mine as a kid? At least everyone with a more functional memory thinks so, but I kind of think he might be older than me. At least, I do not remember him acquiring his remarkably fashion-forward outfit (black shorts, pink shirt, and bow tie) or having to have a leg reattached, or paw and ear felts replaced, and I am moderately certain some of the repairs were my grandmother's work. In any case I have replaced the paw felts (with felt this time, instead of cotton knit), applied some reinforcing twill tape, made a new shirt (still needs buttons) and shorts (also need buttons, and stitching up at the sides). He also needs a new belt and tie; after several failed attempts to tie a bow tie in ribbon, I think he may instead end up with a pink lace cravat. I'm not sure how I'm going to do the buttons. Probably I need to remember how to do french knots.

Hopelessly stuffed up re-setting some shirt sleeves for myself, probably because I thought I knew what I was doing, I've just put that to one side to worry about another day.

And because I am nonetheless possessed of an unfortunate conviction that we can just wing it, when 'it' is obviously a skilled task, I have managed to acquire yet another flute (this makes 4 or 5 depending on whether the piccolo is lost in the house or fully lost-lost), this one a Bb 5-key which I can get all of two notes out of and which is now in pieces on the dining table waiting for new pads, which we are definitely 100% qualified to fit. I mean we already have shellac, right, that's almost halfway there?


...this still does not feel like a complete or coherent post, but if I don't hit the red button it's just going to be even longer...