• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Rest in power, bell hooks.
• “100 speculative fiction titles to add to your reading list“. There are some great ones in this list!
• An update on the Walnut the crane wife and the keeper she selected for her mate. (Scroll to the bottom.)
• On map projections.
• On box jellyfish.
• “The trees that miss the mammoths“.
• Photos from the 1920s of women with cats.
• I didn’t know chocolate fruit looked like that, or that humans are the only species to which its seeds aren’t poisonous.
• “Study says investing in LEGO will earn you more money” than investing in gold.
• What if Christianity wasn’t the dominant religion in the US?
• “The Lord of the Rings cast reunites for a clever anniversary rap“.
• Fiesta peach SPAM loaf.
• Quick coconut chicken curry.
• Red velvet marble cake with cream cheese glaze. (via The Kitchn)
• Hot chocolate macarons. (via The Kitchn)
• …I can’t imagine how much harder it is to do that with cards than with dominoes. 😮
• Do you know how fragile wet paper is?!?!?!??
• GENIUS. More about the Bayeux Tapestry app (including where to find it).
• WHOA.
• And YIKES.
• The saga of Jean and Jorts. Some additional commentary.
• “America’s worst fireplace“.
• Gen-Xer insight.
• A kitty roomba.
• Tubbitha.
• “Studies in ethical realism: The runaway lobster telephone problem“.
• The best name for anti-sub machinery ever.

Reading Update
Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis. Lovely holiday short! I read this in a collection, but it was years ago.
The Hungry Dreaming by Craig Schaefer. Very suspenseful and intense paranormal thriller about saving the past and future of New York City. (Don’t be alarmed that it seems to be the third book in a series – it’s not, really.)
Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren. Ok, but there’s not much to it. And I’m not sure it lives up to its ambitious subtitle.

Drowsing Harry.

Polly by the window, with snow in the background. Most of that snow melted when it was 58F/14C on Wednesday. NOT normal for Minneapolis in December.

Polly asleep, Mayhem mildly annoyed/inconvenienced by Polly’s presence/existence.