Virtual Brush Box

Today’s topic – puzzles and choices.

NYT, 23 March 2025. Some clues are easier than others.

How The Sausage Is Made

These were supposed to be spread over three Outside World introductions this week. Between the dog & my foot, Monday ended up being a long day. I did not have the brain space to start this for the Tuesday post. The dog post was not compatible with Look! Games! So I moved the dog post from Thursday to Wednesday & lumped all of this together today. [Foot, Dog]

Horses are fine, albeit underreported.

Enjoy.

Day One

Awareness of the outside world. Small candle. I am not pleased with how the mainstream media is addressing the current moment. Therefore, I have canceled my NY Times account. I deliberately took their exit survey and told them why, repeatedly. The cancellation includes the crossword puzzle. (Gasp!) It’s not as much of a hardship as it would have been in the past, see below.

Since I was blathering on at length, this section would have run after the body of the post.

As of last Sunday, I am not doing the NY Times crossword any more. I had stopped for a while recently due to a problem with my account. I restarted my subscription in order to practice for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, for which I had already signed up. It was last weekend. More on this at some point.

I discovered that I have hit a plateau with the crossword. I can do the puzzles with relative ease. Interesting but not challenging.

I have no interest in going for speed. [Let The Boxes Begin, American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 2021] explanation

I’m not perfect, but I get my gold star. [Pondering The Rules Of Play, The 44th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament] 2022, explanation

I’ve been doing these daily, or close to, since 2010. [Totally Off Topic Brag] 2019

Maybe it’s time for a change. But mostly the current moment. If & when that changes, I would go back.

Day Two

Awareness of the outside world. In solidarity with no longer doing the NYT crossword, I have also stopped solving the associated free puzzles: Strands, Connections, & Wordle. Spelling Bee went away with my subscription. I do kinda miss that one. I could get to genius but it took a while. I gave up on Queen Bee due to an excessive amount of weird words. The smallest of candles, but one fewer set of eyeballs on the ads. [Six-Letter Word For Repeat Performance, 2021, I discuss Spelling Bee]

Day Three

Awareness of the outside world. I talked about puzzles I am not doing. Here are some I am doing. Waffle. Align. Boston Globe. Free. Other puzzles require a subscription. Squaredle. Shares the family name but is more a word search than a Wordle clone. Speaking clone-dles: Squardle, (note similarity of name), Quordle by Merriam-Webster, Octordle by Britannica. I’ll do Quordle, if I do any of these, and one is enough. Plus, it’s weird to do the knock-off without doing the original. There are other crosswords available online, but am giving the entire genre a miss, for reasons stated. Besides, NYT is the gold standard.

Coda

Answer: BIG GREEN

Onwards!
Katherine

Sad news.

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We are dogless.

Rose is now eating treats with Jasmine, her sister from another mother.

[Jasmine & Rose Fan Club] December 2022 to April 2025

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Further details, for those who want.

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The speed was not unexpected, given the sudden onset. [Rose Finds Her Voice]

Her control over her body never stabilized. She deteriorated to the point that she was unable to hold herself up in a decent meatloaf position. Or Sphinx position, if you prefer. She could eat, if we lined up the food. She was awake and aware. While she might have lingered a bit longer, we have a duty of care. The vet agreed that, given her lack of response to the initiation of the procedure, she was ready to go.

Rose adjusted to the minioning. She learned to accept treats. She asked for help. But, she never reveled in having servants the way Jas did. As best we can tell, Jasmine had a physical deterioration. Rose’s reaction was both physical and a mental response to the physical. Mental counts.

The way the vet put it, “Her tank was dry.”

Run free, Rose.

Onwards.
Katherine

Turns out it is broken. “There is an acute oblique fracture of the fifth metatarsal neck with mild medial displacement of the distal fracture fragment.” Per doc at Urgent Care yesterday. Am waiting on orthopedic appointment & probably a boot.

Pictured here with another, sturdier brace that we had around the house. Have ordered a walking shoe, which looks a lot like this but without the big flappy bit that I get caught on everything. The stiff sole keeps my foot from twisting on uneven ground. Of course, all of the ground around here is uneven.

Including the pasture.

Yes, we are continuing the morning walks. The horses like their routine and it is good for the peoples to get out in the fresh air. However, am trying to be mildly sensible. Doing one lap instead of five. Catch horses. Walk to corner of pasture. Feed cookies. Declare victory.

Medical advice is to do what feels comfortable. One lap is doable. After that, I try to stay off of it. As possible.

Foot Posts

[Playing Footsie, Morning Walk Stories, Or Lack Thereof]

[Foot Follow Up, Morning Walk Stories]

[Finding Color, Further Foot Follow Up]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. We are on a Costco learning curve. Buying in bulk means either items that are a large amount in a short time, for example carrots, or small amounts with a long shelf life, for example store brand soy sauce. [Walking]

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Milton is on a diet. He’s hungry.

Milton’s hay gets divided up so he doesn’t gobble his entire meal in one go. In splitting the hay into muck buckets, some of it ends up on the floor, Eventually, I gather it up and toss it to Rodney, who is on free choice.

Our hungry, hungry hippo has been seen reaching out of the run-in area to snarf up shreds of hay.

New barn chore is to immediately and thoroughly rake the area in front of the run-in.

How am I discovering new chores at this point?

Repost [Woe Is Us, Seriously Look At Us, We Are The Very Image of Woefulness, We Radiate Woe In Waves]

Horses in run-in. Me in tack area. The wooden boards he has been reaching thru.

Onwards!
Katherine

Words of the outside world. BBC: Lost manuscript of Merlin and King Arthur legend read for the first time after centuries hidden inside another book, Ferguson 25 March. Gizmodo: Tales of Merlin and King Arthur Resurface After 750 Years, Hidden in a Bookbinding, 500 years ago, someone decided to use parts of a now-rare manuscript to bind together property records, Bassi, March 30, 2025. Slight different info in the two articles, magnets (Giz) & what they use the magnets for (BBC). Hat tip M & G.

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I can’t get the hieroglyph art sites to work on my system. Perhaps you will have more luck.

Penn Museum: Write Your Name in Hieroglyphics

PBS: Hieroglyphs, Spell Your Name

Other sites give instructions to draw your own.

Memphis (TN), Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology: Write Your Name in Hieroglyphs

ROM: Activity: Write Your Name in Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Royal Ontario Museum. Step-by-step instructions for breaking down each name into sounds. “For example, ancient Egyptians did not have the letter ‘x’, so in foreign names, the sound was represented by using ‘ks’.” If you are trying to write, say, Virtual Brush BOX. Ibid

Or reproduced as jewelry.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science: Personalized Egyptian Cartouche

Among many, many others.

Fun Fact. “Hieroglyphs can be written from left to right (like English), right to left (like Arabic, Hebrew, or Urdu), or even top to bottom (like Chinese). However you write them, all the faces of the figures should be pointing in the same direction. To read the hieroglyphs, read in the direction that moves toward their faces.” ROM

Process Notes

Given my limited understanding of hieroglyphics, I believe they were used for ceremonial and religious purposes. You did not get your name in pictures unless you were the pharaoh, or one of his BFFs. There was a second, more casual script used for record-keeping.

Is it cultural appropriation if the originating civilization has been gone for thousands of years?

Whatever the background, transliterating words into hieroglyphics is popular, probably because pretty.

Onwards!
Katherine

I

Trade at the crossroads
Wood huts to steel heights
Crowds, crime, and culture
Nightlife and night shift
Bourgeoisie birthplace

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II

Walled intersection
Cart wheels and car honks
Taxes, trade, tourism
Street signs and stop lights
Opportunity

Afterword

Inspiration. The hieroglyph for city. Above, from Artefacts of Writing: ‘Niwt’: the hieroglyph for ‘city’, with extended explication of the image. Second image from same site, with other heirglyphs. Also, “O49 Area with crossroads … as organized by Sir Alan H. Gardiner in his Egyptian Grammar.” Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Gardiner’s Sign List of Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

Suggestions for specifics from Forbes: What Defines A Great City?, O’Sullivan 2024 & Forbes: How To Quantify A Successful City, Beyer 2015. Prepandemic, so specifics have aged out, but the “collection of indices” is still relevant.

This started as a haiku, but let’s be serious, my attempts at haiku are more about clever word choice than about creating a poetic moment. So, I decided to leaned into it. These are the geometric equivalent of poetry.

Archives [Haiku, Senryu, & Haiku-like Objects]

Update. To be read as separate efforts. Numbers, divider, & second photo and attribution added to clarify.

Onwards!
Katherine

Photos of the outside world. Pretty pictures to peruse. Mobile Phone Awards: 14th Annual MPA Winners & Honorable Mentions.

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Dandelion in the Driveway.
1 April 2025

Found at the bottom of my driveway as I headed off to run errands.

Technical Details

Phone Camera

Onwards!
Katherine