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Pro tip: too tired/anxious to introduce yourself at a social event? Wear a bookish shirt and wait for people to come ask you about what you’re reading.

I might not eat this whole baguette today.

When we stayed in Le Vésinet, a suburb of Paris, there was a boulangerie on our walk home from the train station. Every time we went into the city, we would stop there and grab a baguette (and usually some other things, too) to have back at the house. I recently got homesick for Paris and found Sophie Nadeau’s blog post, Here’s How to Recreate the Paris Experience in Your Home.

This morning, in order to follow her recommendation to eat a typical French breakfast, I went to Guglhupf, which makes excellent baguettes (but is technically a German bakery) and bought 2.

I don’t know if I’ll polish one off today or not.

A baguette

Finally watched the Amsterdam episode of Ted Lasso and just really missed Amsterdam the whole time. It was a really cool place to be and I’m sorry that between the weather and transit strikes we didn’t get into the city more. Also, gezellig is kind of like Dutch hygge.

Farewell, Wednesday. 🐈‍⬛💔

CW: Pet death

When we brought our kitties home last week, Wednesday had a little nasal discharge. The person at the front desk was all, “Yeah, that’s an upper respiratory infection, they’re super common in shelters, just get her to the vet and they’ll give you some antibiotics.”

I couldn’t get her into the vet until Monday. By Monday, she had lost a third of her bodyweight. She was severely dehydrated. She was constipated. The vets gave me a bunch of (not inexpensive) meds and gave her subcutaneous fluids. Later in the day, I got the discharge notes and they said I should bring her back the next day for more fluids if she didn’t improve in the night.

I took her back, they gave her fluids, and I asked if we could give her fluids at home. They said yes, told me what to do to feed her from a syringe (it’s called trickle feeding), and told me they didn’t know if she was going to make it.

Yesterday, W’s mom came over and we gave her fluids twice. I fed her with a syringe every two or three hours. I gave her all her meds.

This morning, M went in to check on the kittens and when I went in, I saw that she had died in the night.

This is, of course, very sad. But it’s also something I’ve been prepared for for a few days. I know I did everything I could for her. I also know, especially after consulting with the vet when I took her for fluids a couple day ago, that the shelter did wrong by her by not only not treating the respiratory infection but also by going ahead and giving her a bunch of vaccines and spaying her while she was sick.

I know the shelter is struggling, too, so I’m not angry.

But damn. What a set of events to conspire against a little kitten.

I only knew her a little and her personality faded as she got sicker, but she was a fierce, adventurous girl.

On the other hand, her brother Midnight, who also came home with an upper respiratory infection but much less severe, is thriving. We’ll be giving him lots of love and attention.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about my first writing craft book. In case you didn’t believe that I was excited, I recently found my journal from 7th grade and in it I write about that very book.

📺🖖🏻 Finished my rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation today. It felt much less intense watching “All Good Things…” now than when it originally aired, probably because I can visit my Enterprise-D friends whenever I want.

Fan Studies Network North America is October 11 -15 and open for registration! I’ll be facilitating a conversation among FanLIS scholars about fan tagging practices and ways libraries can use their collections to engage fans.